MAKING MISTAKES.

My opponent did not need to work for the win, it was given to him.

About 15 or 20 years ago I was talking to a workmate when I discovered he trained in Karate, we began talking about training when he shared his opinion that Wing Chun didn’t work in a real fight.

When I asked him why he thought that punching people in the head or kicking them in the nuts did not work in a ‘Real Fight”, because that is part of what Wing Chun teaches, he said I did not understand what he meant so the obvious thing was to touch hands.

In a friendly way.

We were in a quiet part of a very large building so we decided there was no time like the present.

Long story short, he came second.

I may only train in Wing Chun, but I understand Karate.

I would stand out of range until he tried to close on me and then I would swarm him.

After a few minutes of this, pretty much rinse and repeat, we called it quits and I asked him what he now thought about Wing Chun.

At this point, he told me that what I had used was not Wing Chun.

This really puzzled me, how did he come up with that opinion?

Despite the fact that he did not train in Wing Chun, he knew that what I was doing was not it.

It turns out that what I had done was not what he had seen on YouTube. 

I was no longer surprised.

Lately, YouTube has been suggesting many videos to me that offer up a wide variety of opinions on Wing Chun.

Most of these are negative.

Most YouTube visitors are just searching for some kind of shortcut to what their teacher is offering and not really casting an intelligent eye on what is being shown, the majority of these people are still struggling to understand whatever Martial style it is that they are training in.

I am not trying to be mean, but most of them have a very limited idea of what Martial Arts do, especially their own Martial art.

One thing I can assure you of is that once we understand what makes our own style work we know what makes all styles work, and pretty soon we realise that all styles work.

After all, a punch is just a punch.

So it stands that if we do not fully understand why our own style works we will never understand how other styles work.

And of course, YouTube also appeals to people who love the idea of training in Martial arts, but lack the motivation to do the work.

After watching M.A. presentation after M.A. presentation they believe that they have absorbed a great deal of information, but without a personal, practical context, none of this information winds up as useable.

Therefore, in their lack of context, they proclaim that it does not work.

I grew up in post-WW.2. Britain, throughout all of my early life violence was commonplace, I have been, like all of my generation, in so many violent situations it even sounds exaggerated to me.

To be expected I did not win them all, no one does.

But in the situations that I came second in, there were very few times where I was beaten by a more skilled or better-trained fighter.

I made mistakes, I made poor decisions, and I lost.

My opponent did not need to work for the win, it was given to him.

Not all of the time for sure, but at least 90% of my losses were my own fault.

And even though I like to think the opposite is not true, 90% of my wins must have been the other guy making mistakes, and making poor decisions. 

This is reality.

We become better fighters by eliminating errors.

We eliminate errors through regular and intelligent training.

We eliminate errors by doing the little things right.

KNOWLEDGE IS GAINED BY ADDING SOMETHING NEW.

WISDOM IS GAINED BY TAKING AWAY SOMETHING OLD.

LAO TZU