IT IS HAPPENING AGAIN.

the overriding intention is ‘do the work, do not hang around, go home’.

It appears to be that time of year again, the time when Kung Fu Masters choose to step into an arena to battle fighters from other disciplines.

The clip I have here was recently posted to our WhatsApp group by Sam, it is a Kung Fu Master vs a youngish Female Boxer.

The difference in age, build, and weight is quite significant.

The only info I have of the two fighters is what is given in the video, but I have no reason to doubt the commentator.

The usual approach is to bag-out the Kung Fu guy for not being the second coming of Bruce Lee and generally covering him in scorn.

But why?

Even though it has been well over 40 years since I took someone on competitively, I remember the nerves stepping through the ropes, or onto that mat.

This ‘caper’ is not for the faint at heart, and we should at least give them some respect for this.

When Kung Fu practitioners talk about these events there is the suggestion that none of us cares about these fools and the games they play.

If that is the case why are the comments so brutal?

We do feel it, deep inside, we do get embarrassed, and feel ‘Tarred with the same brush’, and with a certain percentage of students, this creates a sense of doubt.

But I ask you, doubt about what?

Doubt about our ability to hold our nerves when we step into an area with someone that wants to hurt us?

Doubt about our conditioning to chase that someone around a ring for 15 minutes?

Doubt about our capacity to ignore punishment and carry on when the other fighter hits us?

This is not what we train for, so where does this doubt come from?

We should simply not go there.

What Kung Fu, and any other self-defence-minded Martial Art trains for, the environment we will find ourselves in so to speak, is a very short, very intense, unprepared-for attack.

The thing that makes this environment so difficult is that we will, to a certain degree, be caught out, be surprised, be shocked, the thing could be over before we know it has begun.

However, if we can reverse the flow, and surprise or shock our attacker, then the path ahead becomes much easier to navigate.

This is the concept of counter-attack, this is what we train.

It is not about swapping punches, is about turning tables.

If we look at the video we should ask ourselves….

Q. #1. Where are the Kung Fu skills?

All we see is an apparently untrained brawler trying to face off against a moderately trained boxer, which begs the obvious question…

Q. #2. Why is this trained Kung Fu Master choosing to brawl instead of using Kung Fu?

All Kung Fu styles, but particularly Wing Chun, operate from a position of responding to someone attacking us, that is the whole IDEA of self-defence.

It is hard to access self-defence IDEAs if we are the ones doing the attack.

If we look at this fight through the lens of our own ‘FIST LOGIC’ it is the young boxer, if anyone, that is employing Kung Fu philosophy.

This gets down to something I have been banging on about for years.

Kung Fu, and especially Wing Chun Kung Fu, does not fight.

Let’s spend a minute and clear this up a bit.

What is a fight?

A fight is an event where 2 people openly attack each other, that is it in a nutshell, attack, attack, attack, usually the closest anyone gets to defending themselves is through evasion.

‘Fighting‘ is not what Kung Fu prepares for.

What type of event does Kung Fu prepare for, and again, specifically Wing Chun Kung Fu?

It trains for an unwanted, unexpected, violent situation, and the goal is to get out of there as soon as possible, with a minimum amount of damage.

Obviously, to escape we may first need to incapacitate the attacker, but the overriding intention is ‘do the work, do not hang around, go home’.

Choosing to engage with another person in a fight, or trying to get ourselves out of an unwanted situation are two completely different environments with very different needs, and very different outcomes.

For every environment, there is an optimum way to interact with that environment.

Trying to use self-defence IDEAS for fighting is just choosing an inappropriate means of interaction with that environment.

A bit like Ballroom dancing in a wet suit and flippers.

I am sure someone could make it work, but why even try?

The skills we need are much less specialised physical skills, and more the ability to pick the right tool for the job.

This comes down to understanding what that job is, for example, are we choosing to fight someone as if duelling to defend our honour?

It comes down to detailing the outcomes we wish for, for example, are we looking to prove a point and set someone straight or just get out of there in one piece?

But most importantly, it is deeply understanding the capacity of what we are training to get us the results we want to get.

The video below is quite long, you will get what I am going on about in the first few minutes, but it is worth watching it all.

As always if this creates any kind of confusion we can do a training session to focus on this aspect.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

Winston Churchill.