they stole our 3rd jingang daodui!

[Edmond]

I think you just got exposed to crappy wing chun. If anything, the wing chun I've seen had an over-reliance on structure and accompanying hand techniques, but if you were dumb enough to stand in front of them, you were likely in for some hurtin'.

Overall, I think good schools of any classical martial art are pretty hard to come by. The "average" is likely a pretty poor representation of any real quality school, in the same way that the "average" taiji school is not representative of the art as we know it 'round here.

I don't deny the possibility of not coming across a good Wing Chun school. I'm curious to see the example you've come across to see how they're different.

The most popular Wing Chun came from Ip Man, so it's really just one branch that got most of the spotlight. Recently, there's been more exposure to non-Ip Man lines and there are a lot out there. Unfortunately, with the boom from the popularity of Ip Man movies, there's also a lot more BS as well making the signal-to-noise ratio worse.

 

[Maou]

If I may interject into this discussion...

Someone who I've spoken to elsewhere,whom I trust (He is familiar with Adrenal/Scenario-Based Training programs. I found myself agreeing with him a lot more than the Combat Sports practitioners who tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater) is a Wing Tsun practitioner,and he's given a few names worth looking into if one wants to find authentic (or at least "effective") Wing Tsun/Chun:

Erik Paulson,Kevin Lee,Chris Collins,and David Neal Brown. 2 of these guys have youtube channels,one is featured in a video:

Loading…

www.youtube.com

Loading…

www.youtube.com

(Uploaded by Kevin Lee)

I have not found videos of David Neal Brown yet (I only did a quickie search),but he strikes me as the most interesting of the bunch based on what my friend told me. He is a certified Muay Thai instructor,and he only teaches Wing Chun to his students after at least 3 years of Muay Thai training. My friend doesn't deny that even authentic Wing Tsun has its weaknesses (All Martial disciplines do,really...),and its best use (in his view/opinion,and based on my impression thus far of the art,I'm inclined to agree) is as a supplement to already having a base art/system.

I'm not claiming any expertise on this subject matter,but I trust this friend of mine and feel this information is worth sharing. I would definitely be interested to hear your impressions should you guys skim those youtube channels.

Edit:

Instructor bio of David Neal Brown (just after the head instructor) if its of any relevance here:

Seattle CRT

seattlecrt.com

 

[Marin]

https://www.youtube.com/@KevinLeeVlog
(Uploaded by Kevin Lee)

These guys are such voracious social media promoters it is hard to take them seriously. Kevin Lee and Co. it's really a business agenda. I am sure it's all fine etc but all these hyped up Wing Chun teachers who just happen to train Muay Thai, BJJ and everything else are everywhere. Nothing wrong with it either, but it is evidence that the system (and/or the revenue) is so lacking that all that extra was necessary. Factually, Wing Chun has weak to nonexistent throwing/grappling curriculum, and their locking is also underserved. Of course they need other stuff. When you see a video headline that says "could this be the real wing chun?" that's clickbait hype. If they don't know the real wing chun they need to get off the youtube soapbox. If the 'real wing chun' has yet to be found, what are they all doing?

 

[angryclown]

I'm curious to see the example you've come across to see how they're different.

Unfortunately, I don't have any video, or even knowledge of where guys studied, or anything like that. It's just been backyard barbeque kind of stuff, messing around. I've met a couple "pure" Wing Chun guys, where that was their main jam, and another guy who picked some up in the 80s (I think) after trying to kick a guy during a fight in a pool hall and catching the pool table, instead. At that point, he decided he wanted to refine his fighting in narrow spaces. He did say that he went to a Wing Chun school years (or decades) later, and didn't recognize what they were doing, at all.

But the whole thing about learning something of a particular art for a particular purpose bears considering. Wing Chun fairs poorly in MMA without a lot of supplemental material to help it, but if you're on a narrow walkway in a strange town as part of a travelling theater company trying to make it home to your riverboat where you've got 40 of your family and friends waiting to back you up, Wing Chun might be a great way to get through or past someone quickly without a lot of room so you can run like hell to safety.

I've listened to some pretty interesting discussions about techniques in different martial arts that have similar mechanics and do almost the exact same thing, but do it differently based on the environment the art comes from. Throwing in a hot, humid region where people wear minimal clothing is different than throwing in a cold, rugged region where people have big coats on. Same with striking, weapons, etc. Then if you add in things like military/milita context vs. civilian vs. sport, or how things change based on cultural status and norms, etc, it gets really complex. In that sense, it makes more sense to judge arts against their native context vs. against one another. The ultimate criteria, of course, is the individual needs and wants of the current practitioner. Looking at the historical context of an art can help clarify things around that, in my opinion.

 

[Marin]

but if you're on a narrow walkway in a strange town as part of a travelling theater company trying to make it home to your riverboat where you've got 40 of your family and friends waiting to back you up

Well, obviously...

 

[Edmond]

If I may interject into this discussion...

Someone who I've spoken to elsewhere,whom I trust (He is familiar with Adrenal/Scenario-Based Training programs. I found myself agreeing with him a lot more than the Combat Sports practitioners who tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater) is a Wing Tsun practitioner,and he's given a few names worth looking into if one wants to find authentic (or at least "effective") Wing Tsun/Chun:

Erik Paulson,Kevin Lee,Chris Collins,and David Neal Brown. 2 of these guys have youtube channels,one is featured in a video:

Loading…

www.youtube.com

Loading…

www.youtube.com

(Uploaded by Kevin Lee)

I have not found videos of David Neal Brown yet (I only did a quickie search),but he strikes me as the most interesting of the bunch based on what my friend told me. He is a certified Muay Thai instructor,and he only teaches Wing Chun to his students after at least 3 years of Muay Thai training. My friend doesn't deny that even authentic Wing Tsun has its weaknesses (All Martial disciplines do,really...),and its best use (in his view/opinion,and based on my impression thus far of the art,I'm inclined to agree) is as a supplement to already having a base art/system.

I'm not claiming any expertise on this subject matter,but I trust this friend of mine and feel this information is worth sharing. I would definitely be interested to hear your impressions should you guys skim those youtube channels.

Edit:

Instructor bio of David Neal Brown (just after the head instructor) if its of any relevance here:

Seattle CRT

seattlecrt.com

Thanks for sharing. The Wing Tsun stuff from Chris Collins looks familiar. That's where I came from. These kinds of self defense classes have their audience, and have their place. If you want to learn not to freeze when you're suddenly attacked and respond with something better than randomly flailing, they'll get you there.

But if we're looking for improved quality of movement, it's difficult to find one that has that. Even if we find one, it also depends on how effective they are at teaching it. My Wing Tsun instructor was able to move well himself and basically let us do anything to attack him, and I haven't seen anyone that actually gave him trouble. However, many of us that were there for more than 10 years didn't develop any ability that's approaching that level. He would say "move more, practice more" without any specific details. It's like a painting class where they tell you to "just paint" instead of refining certain strokes and such. I'll just say it took me too many years (a lot of time and money) to start questioning if this "free development" approach would get anywhere.

I can quite confidently say that I learned more about how to move better in 2 years here with the detailed instruction, and it's just the surface. Of course the mechanics are different between the styles, but the teaching method is clearly laid out and under strict quality control by Marin. When I visited Marin's class in-person, I got a chance to work with many of his students in Boston and they were all consistently solid (from my newbie point of view). When the students are good, that's a sign of effective teaching. It's too bad, I can't make it to in-person training as much as I'd like. I'm sure I could have made even better progress, but we work with what we have.

On the bright side, if it wasn't for the pandemic, this option wouldn't even be available, and I'd still be lost in the woods. I should be grateful.

 

[Maou]

it also depends on how effective they are at teaching it.

Yeah,I would definitely say this is an underrated/under-spoken aspect concerning Martial Arts training. Its not just about how "effective" the school/instructors are,but whether or not they are actually good at transmitting this knowledge unto their students. The BJJ sphere in general sadly suffers from bad teaching. This is the biggest reason I didn't buy another monthly session of BJJ in my current local area. The instructor can definitely fight (He's fought in OneFC) and he's a pretty neat guy in general,but sadly number among the "technique of the day" instructors plaguing BJJ.

I have found it to be less of an issue taking Boxing/Muay Thai here just because the classes unintentionally end up either small or solo (unlike BJJ which is strictly scheduled at a certain time of the day,there are multiple times/opportunities to take a striking class session throughout the day,so if you're lucky,you or just 1-2 others might be having a class at a time,which means closer supervision.),but I'm probably not going to progress that much more in the current training area here. At the very least,I've gotten what I feel is the most important lesson I could get from them; Hard contact sparring sessions. I've gotten more of it than I've ever had in the past and I've definitely acclimated to some extent. (Not 100%,but definitely much better than I did prior to training with them. haha)

I definitely look forward to experiencing the training here. I've read a few comments here of folks who train MMA/Combat Sports and how experience with training this has benefitted them in that aspect. Personally,I could definitely benefit from Kinestheic Awareness improvement. I've been a bit physically oafish most of my life. (I wasn't physically active in my youth. I didn't get into all this until much later in my life.) Thankfully,getting into fitness and weight lifting under the guidance of a local gym trainer has helped me out a bit in that aspect.