Introduction
Wing Chun Kung Fu is a popular martial art from Southern China, although its renown is not based on flattery. Instead, it is based on the belief that it is ineffective and unrealistic. However, what most people don’t realize is that most of their criticisms can be torn apart and rendered baseless if you spend even as little as an hour analyzing them.
Yes, I know what you are thinking. “Didn’t we cover this on September 29th, 2021?” Kind of. In the prior article, I talked about criticisms that weren’t unique to Wing Chun. This time , I will addressi three comments that fall apart under close inspection.
By the way, if you didn’t catch my previous article, go read it here:
Your Wing Chun Criticisms Are NOT Unique to Wing Chun
You don’t have to read that to understand this article, but it would be much appreciated if you did. (I’m new here, so I’m trying to raise my readership stats.)
When you are done, come on back here and join me on this month’s adventure.
1) “Wing Chun is meant for tight spaces.”
People say this because, when a UFC match starts, the fighters are on opposite sides of the ring, out of each other’s reach. This criticism is meant to address the perception that Wing Chun is a “close-quarters” martial art.
NEWS FLASH: It’s not.
It is a close-range art. There is a huge difference.
Let me start by defining the word in question: “quarters.” We aren’t talking about what you used to put in an ancient device called a payphone, nor are we talking about when you divide pumpkin pie among four family members at Thanksgiving time. The definition of “quarters” that concerns us here relates to space that people occupy.
Have you ever seen a movie where guests arrive at a huge mansion and, when he takes them to the guest rooms, the butler says, “Let me show you to your quarters?”
That is the definition I mean. It is this alternate meaning that causes all the confusion because when you say “close-quarters,” people think of tight locations: a bathroom, a hallway, an alley, a bedroom, a crowded bar, etc.
To say Wing Chun is a “close-quarters style” implies you have to be in close quarters to use it. In other words, if you are on a football field instead of in a bathroom, you can’t use it.
This is not the case for one simple reason: Wing Chun is a close-range style. In other words, you have to be in close proximity to your opponent. If you aren’t close to them, then you need to get there!
And how do you accomplish that?
Footwork, of course.
Let me explain how this criticism is flimsy by swapping out “Wing Chun” with the name of another style. I am going to use one where you need to be even closer to use it than you do with Wing Chun:
“Jiu-Jitsu is a close-quarters martial art.”
Obviously, people fall all over themselves to praise Jiu-Jitsu, but what they don’t think about is the fact that you need to get close to your opponent to use it. Yes, even closer than you do with Wing Chun. Ironically enough, you even have to pass through Wing Chun range to execute your techniques.
If you have to be close to use Jiu-Jitsu, then why aren’t people using the same criticism against that style? Well, that is because Jiu-Jitsu players have won tournaments with it. However, the lack of Wing Chun champions does not negate my argument.
“Wing Chun is a close-range system” is not enough to qualify as a knock against the style because there is a very simple reply: “If you need to be close to your opponent to use it, then get close to them.”
2) “The idea of Wing Chun is to take people out fast. It’s not meant for three-minute rounds.”
When people say this, they are comparing a street fight to a professional match.
Just like with Boxing, MMA fights have three-minute rounds. (At least that was the length for the fights I’ve seen.) This is an indisputable fact because there are countless videos on YouTube where we can see each round being timed.
There is no such solid data for street fights. To do that, you’d have to send some researcher out to crowded bars or to sit in shady parts of town where they could observe real fights and notate their length. In other words, the only information we have regarding the length of the average street fight is anecdotal evidence.
However, we need a number for comparison, so let’s say for the sake of argument that your average street fight is ten seconds. If it goes any longer than that, odds are you are going to get knocked out.
Let me pose a question here using some simple math: if Wing Chun is meant to “take people out fast,” meaning ten seconds, and a typical MMA round is three minutes…well, then doesn’t mean you actually have an extra two minutes and fifty seconds to get the job done?
3) “Wing Chun is too deadly for MMA, and if you trained Wing Chun without those deadly techniques just so you could be in an MMA tournament, then you aren’t doing Wing Chun.”
This is the “have your cake and eat it too” argument. Notice how whichever way you go, the person who is determined to say Wing Chun sucks wins.
I discussed the first half of this statement in my previous article, but I will recap it here: “All a person has to do is train according to the rules of the competition by not training the excluded techniques.”
However, if you come back at someone with that answer, they will follow up with the rest of that statement.
When this happens, one question pops into my mind right away: “How much Wing Chun training do you have?” Because if the answer is little or none, then that tells me they have no authority to dictate what is “real” or “not real” Wing Chun. You have to have more than a passing familiarity with any system to make that call. (And no, watching all the Donnie Yen Ip Man movies one hundred times each does not qualify you as being an authority on it.)
There is no martial arts system that is defined by its techniques. In fact, this is why many martial arts instructors will focus on making sure their students understand principles and theories. Focusing on techniques means that, when you are in the heat of a self-defense situation and someone comes at you in a certain way, you will start thinking, “Okay, they’re doing Attack A. Uh…do I do defense B, C, or D?”
Sifting through all the techniques you know causes a delay in your reaction. You were slowed down enough due to the fact that they started swinging. (As the saying goes, “Reaction is slower than action.”) Your counter will be much faster and more likely to succeed if you have been trained in principles instead of techniques.
To sum up the point I am making here: no system is defined by its techniques.
Here is one of my trusty analogies: let’s say a Jiu-Jitsu player enters a tournament where they can use all their joint locks and throws, but they absolutely, positively, cannot use any choke hold maneuvers.
Today’s study question: would anyone say that person is not doing Jiu-Jitsu?
Don’t worry about answering; it’s rhetorical.
Conclusion
While this article might seem like it is about the same topic, it comes at it from a different angle: these aren’t criticism that are not unique to Wing Chun; they are criticisms that have not one leg on which to stand.
As with any article that expresses an opinion, the reader is free to agree or disagree with it. I don’t expect to move mountains or even change thoughts.
However, the good news is: that’s not why I write.
I don’t write to beat you into submission with my views; I do it to share them. My hope is that you, dear reader, are capable of seeing that because if you can, then you will approach each piece with an open mind. This will lead to the ability to gain knowledge from my words.
And what did our good friend Bruce Lee once say?
“All types of knowledge ultimately means self-knowledge.”
Here’s to getting to know yourselves, friends.
His YouTube channel (Geek Wing Chun) gives free training tips and ideas for people who want to get better at Wing Chun but can't make it to class as often as they'd like. Check it out by simply typing "Geek Wing Chun" into the YouTube search field!
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- TRAINING TIP – Ignore the Latest Shiny Object - August 4, 2022
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