I’m writing to let you know about my classes in Ip Man Wing Chun Kung Fu.
I’m from the UK and have been studying under a senior student of Ip Ching, the younger son of Ip Man, for 15 years in the UK and Hong Kong. Classes are held in English.
I’d like to invite everyone, regardless of experience or ability to our free induction classes this week. It’s all about simplicity, effectiveness, self defense and self expression.
Please come along in normal training clothes and sneakers. This is a gentle 2-hour crash course on the principles and training methods of traditional Wing Chun.
Ivy Palace, Section 1, Dihua Street, Datong District, Taipei City
Well, the standards of Wing Chun vary pretty widely. In general the standard is not that high. Anyone who tells you they are good just because of their teacher probably isn’t that good. As with any fighting art, it’s the singer, not the song.
That said someone should be able to teach certain aspects so anyone can do it, even you, anon
nah thats bollocks. you could study kung fu for ten years and not actually know what to do if you had to have a real fight. you can’t just say this or that school had a bad teacher.
because it doesn’t actually train you for an actual fight, if you want self defense do BJJ, boxing or thai boxing and you can actually practice real fight situations you might get into and you would actually know what to do thanks to sparring it out. not gonna happen with kung fu. its cool for what it is but its misleading to call it self defense. if you practice something for years and get into a real fight then still don’t know what to do its pretty useless imo.
Does BJJ teach one how to block an iron bar to the back of the head?
What you are arguing is one martial art may not be the optimal form of self defence. It doesn’t follow that it is therefore useless as a form of self defence.
Any expert in any martial art will probably have the upper hand against 95% of opponents. Size and power will factor in, of course.
Wing chun techniques can definitely help in self defense. But like any martial arts, they have advantages and disadvantages. Bjj would be great if it’s a single attacker but completely useless once there is more than one pretty much. Using only wing chun to defend yourself is however pretty useless in real situations unless the attacker is using only wing chun as well. A person who adapts wing chun into more practical forms of self defense will benefit. But a person who think exclusively using wing chun to defend themselves will work will get his ass beat by a 12 year old girl.
But the problem of wing chun is they have fallen too rigid into the art form vs realistic self defense in real scenarios.
However I would count it as useful in self defense because a person who practices martial arts will naturally develop confidence and body mobility and functions. Can certainly help you avoid fights as people are less likely to pick on a person who isn’t a weak victim.
the other guy has as good a chance as the wing chun guy.
you can watch the early ufcs if you don’t believe me. this was when people knew nothing, so there were people entering who were kung fu guys(every fighting style infact). and this was when there were no rules. guess what happened in a real fight situation? their kung fu techniques went right out the window. all that was happening was bog standard punches and kicks, and it always went to the floor.
kung fu is as good as useless. if you want self defense then do something better. bjj and some striking. i wish i knew better than wasting my time taking kung fu classes when i did, but theres more information around today so hopefully less people are wasting their time.
3 best self defense forms in real life situations. Krav Maga, bjj, wrestling. You probably don’t want to do much striking with your hand as you’ll probably have a 50/50 chance of breaking your hands landing a clean shot on a guys face. Hence why early UFC fights always went to the ground like @BHL4life said. This was before they have grapple gloves.
I have love for wing chun as an art form. But for self defense, it’s close to useless unless you adapt the concepts into more practical forms of self defense. Still recommend it for health, confidence and possibly spiritual benefits
im sure when theres weapons involved the best idea is to not fight at all but still, being able to take someone down is an advantage, an iron bar is pretty useless if you are on your back with someone else ontop of you. and no i am not saying one martial art is better than another. i am saying some are effective, and some are useless (For self defense) and shouldn’t really be labeled as such. i took kung fu thinking it was going to teach me that and i learnt no such thing.
you missed the point mate. let me be clear. in a real fight the kung fu guys learned kung fu techniques would not be used. he would resort to no technique punches and kicks (because that works better than his kung fu) if you are saying a martial artist is someone fighting with no skill or technique then you are a bit confused.
For what it’s worth, I’ve had a lot of fights on the streets as well as MMA and BJJ competition and still do Wing Chun as my main training today.
I can share my thoughts on the effectiveness of Wing Chun, and why Wing Chun is often rightly seen as being ineffective.
First, you have to look at Kung Fu in general - the culture around it, the incentives and the amount of people doing it is a fraction of what it used to be. Martial Arts are not just systems but living cultures. Wing Chun isn’t quite as connected to it’s original purpose the way sport styles like judo, muay thai and boxing are, because they are sports with training cultures around them. In Hong Kong in the 50’s and 60’s people were going out, scrapping, and coming back to the gym to work on what they had learned, though.
The other thing about Wing Chun and one that’s harder to understand is that it’s a ‘conceptual’ style. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t real, it just means that it’s a style that really focuses on concepts and principles first. The principles are good and can be found in a lot of other arts, like for example old style bareknuckle boxing, but the problem is that approach makes it pretty easy to take some of those principles and concepts and apply them without any real understanding of context. Because Martial Arts is about a culture and in fighting context is everything.
Finally, all forms of Kung Fu traditionally required quite a bit of practice to be able to achieve high level skills, and this is something few people are able to do as well as reach top condition, for whatever reason
