Wing Tzun COMBAT UNI-SYSTEM

Why do we use the term "COMBAT"?

Historically, in a primitive age, Kung fu was designed and used specifically for fighting.
People had to fight in order to survive and live.

Since then Kung Fu has developed in two parallel lines:
-- one is for Sports, Physical fitness, Health, stage Performance and Movies,
-- another is for Combat efficiency, mostly used by the Military, the Police and the Special Forces, where the main purpose is to use it for Real.

Nowadays even Wing Chun Kung-Fu, despite its efficiency and effectiveness, has the tendency of more like a Keep-Fit Training.

Only a few masters teach it for a Practical use.

We believe that - Today, in this Unstable World, there is a Real Need to learn how to use Kung fu for Real, to be able to protect our families, our close ones and ourselves, to assure our Survival.

And "the-best-way-is-to-avoid-any-confrontation" thing may not always work, especially when Suddenly attacked without any warning.

So, in such cases you may need to know how to use your Fighting Skills just for a mere Survival.

Thats why we emphasize - Combat Self-Defense, that is, an ability to use your skills Efficiently in Any Situation.

But theres a catch!

A Training Approach - Thats what matters the most !

In the Modern Martial Arts World with its diversity of Fighting systems, the Traditional WC Training is Not Enough for a practitioner to be able to use Wing Chun for a Practical Self-Defense.

Besides, Wing Chun was originally designed to deal with Traditional Styles of kung fu.

But today, nobody fights like that !

Back then, there were no Boxing, no Kick Boxing, no different Wrestling systems well-known niether in China nor in Hong Kong.

But Now These Systems Dominate the Fighting World !

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Our Training Method is still based on the Traditional WC-Exercises and Drills, but it is also combined with the Principles and Concepts of a Real-Fighting, considering Modern Martial Art Styles.

In addition, we include different exercises and drills of the Military Special Forces Training, which help us to develop all the Essential Skills for Combat.

And whats more, we start practicing all this together from the very beginning of our Training Program.

Some people say: - "theres nothing like a Real-Life-Full- Contact Fighting " in order to learn how to Really Fight and get that Real Experience.

Well, maybe. But do not rush to conclusion!

Yes. It is well known that a Real-Fighting has a bunch of its own Principals that go far beyond the Wing Chun or any other styles of kung fu. And It has a lot to do with: --

• an ability to Control your Feelings and Emotions
• to rely more on your Natural Senses, Reaction, Reflexes, Instincts and Intuition,
• to have Mental Strength and Willpower, and at the same time, Psyche and Body Relaxation
• to be extremely Observant and Mobile
• to conserve your Energy, to have Endurance
• to see an opponents week and strong sides
• to know different Fighting Strategies
• to be able to fight from any Distance
• to know how to Properly Breath etc just to name a few!

You can actually free fight without learning any Kung Fu at all, but in terms of Combat Efficiency that level of fighting is low and greatly limited.

So, once you have learned some fighting system and understood its core Principles then you would want to know how to apply all the techniques in Free-fighting, and what advantage it could give you as opposed to your basic street-fighting level.

Like in swimming, you may learn how to do it by simply going into the water and trying to swim relying on your natural body movements. And you may become a good swimmer according to your own scale. But, once you have seen a higher level of swimming, and learned some techniques and principles of it, thus raising your overall skill on a higher level, then you would notice that you could perform much better. -So, youd grow out of a good swimmer to a great one!

Aside from some people Physical and Mental limitations, this all goes to a Training Approach and some Free-Fighting Practice.

Once again, they say - the best way is a "Real-Full-Contact-Fighting Experience".

Well, but there may be a Big Problem!

In order to get that "Real-Life Fighting experience" you have to participate in a lot of real-life-full-contact fights.

But you may have to pay a big price for that!

It can get you in all sorts of troubles and have many negative consequences, some legal issues, and even jail time.

Whats more, it may be very destructive to your mental and physical Health.

• We do NOT want that!

• We do NOT recommend even trying that!!!

But theres surely an alternative!

*** In Our Training,

altogether with Traditional Wing Chun Drills we do a lot of special Physical and Mental exercises that give us an ability to Control our Feelings and Emotions, to keep them Proportionally Balanced, and to trigger our Natural Surviving Mechanism to work for us.

We also do a Free-Fighting Practice, including Controlled-Contact Fights in protective gear at first and then, at a higher level, without it, which brings us close to the edge but still keeps us on the safe side.

By the way, Grandmaster Yip Man in his youth, and while being a captain of the Police unit was famous for his real-life-street fights and for Free fights with instructors of different kung fu styles.

Whats more, he would encourage his students to practice Lut-Sau. According to Grandmaster Chow Tze Chuen, Yip Man would say: -- Lut Sau Kin Kung Fu, [-Meaning: - Real Kung Fu can be seen from Free Sparring-].

Note: - Real-Fighting and Free-Sparring are different animals of one kind.

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What makes us different from the others?

Generally speaking, Wing Chun Kung Fu is a good Fighting Style which can be used in some Regular Fighting Situations.

However, speaking about Survival or Real Combat, or Professional System, - Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu is Not totally Complete, because it does Not have any Ground-Fighting at all.
But, statistically known that more than 50% of fights end up on the ground.
For example, just watch "Ultimate Fighting" (UFC) or MMA fights, not mentioning Real street-Fighting against Multiple Attackers.

Some Wing Chun practitioners mix it with some Wrestling Ground-fighting Techniques and that might work for them. -- Its a matter of personal ability. But all in all its much harder to put together two contrasting concepts and constantly readjust.

And remember, in a Real Seriously Dangerous Life-threatening Combat Situation, in such an emergency, we naturally have tendency to forget all things, to forget all the moves we have learned.

That kind of a shock freezes the brain! The only "guys who still work" at that moment are our Natural Reflexes. So, this makes it even more difficult to switch from one contrasting system to another.

Military and Special Operation Professionals normally go through a Special Training and for them its not That emergency. They trained specifically for that. It's their job. So for them the "Switching" may work. But for Regular People this may not be the case.

So, to make Our Wing Chun fit in for Combat saving the Essence of the style, Sifu has been working on developing Our Own WC-Ground-Fighting Method while trying to save the Major Wing Chun Principals rather than just base it on the movements.

- The Major Wing Chun Principles are much more important than the Actual Techniques because without those Principles the techniques become inefficient or even useless.

Not being ignorant, we feel no qualms about Adding a bit to Wing Chun without changing its Core Concepts.

- We change nothing!

- We just add a little extra to it!

According to Yip Chun (an elder son of Yip Man): -- "the Grandmaster Yip Man was making developments. Grandmaster emphasized that we have to learn from Experience to improve the art and broaden our knowledge. -- There should be constant development".


We also strongly believe that its Crucially Important to spend an Equal Amount of the Training Time for practicing All Major Wing Chun Aspects such as;

* Hand / Leg techniques

* Forms / Dynamic Forms

* CH-SAU (sticking hands) exercise

* CHI-GERK (sticking-legs) exercise

* LUT-SAU free-fighting practice (including full-contact fights / fights against multiple opponents)

* Our own Wing Chun Ground-Fighting

*** And WE DO SO ! ***

And thats why

Hand / Leg Techniques and Combos (Forms, Stances, Stepping etc) is the Foundation - the Core Techniques - an Alphabet - Words and Phrases of the Wing Chun Language. And its Essential to practice them a great lot repeatedly and correctly in order to master and be able to use them skillfully. So, we have to learn how to speak the WC-language.

First, we start practicing the Basics: - Stances, - Stepping, - Hand and - Leg movements in the air and on the wooden dummy to get Coordination and Proper Positioning of the limbs.

The Basics are introduced in class, but mostly practiced by students on their own.
- We want to spend Most of our Class Training Time Practicing with Partners.

- There is nothing like practicing a fighting system with a real person.

Wing Chun Forms are consist of basic hand and leg movements, basic body movements and stepping.

Every Form is just a set of some specific separate techniques and short combos, which are designed for a trainee to memorize them first, and then every single technique and a simple combo is practiced separately.

*** Simplicity is the key here.

Thats why in Yip Mans lineage of Wing Chun there are only- three short empty-hand forms, - one wooden dummy form and - two weapon forms.

There is absolutely no need to learn a number of different forms imitating a fight with an imaginable opponent like in traditional styles of kung fu, in order to master Wing Chun.

- We do not imagine anything.

- We do practice with partners.

- Imagination and Reality are totally different things.

So, practicing in pairs attacking and counter-attacking movements of the Forms gives us that first taste of efficiency and effectiveness of the Realistic Wing Chun techniques.

First off, we learn an "alphabet and simple words", meaning that some certain offensive movements should be dealt with some certain defensive techniques or movements from the Wing Chun forms etc

Secondly, we learn some "simple poems", practicing some really simplistic, A B C combinations, also combined with easy Stepping etc

Thirdly, we learn how to "say something which was learnt by heart with our own words". As soon as our trainees become comfortable with the movements they start to improvise, to practice the techniques randomly in order Not to be confided by some fixed, pre-arranged patterns, because in a Real Fight everything happens Very Fast, unexpected and totally irregular, even chaotic with some erratic movements.

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Here's one interesting funny thing...

Over the years weve seen some kung fu practitioners who have studied different styles (even Wing Chun) for many years, but have Never or very Rarely been engaged in Real Fights, or even in a Free Fighting Practice, that is, Not having enough of that experience. So, while Sparring for the First Time, they would start acting funny doing some Eccentric, Bizarre movements, which they had never learned in their styles and never thought that they could do them that way. Their arms and legs would be everywhere Except Proper Positions.

They later confessed that they couldnt actually control their actions.

That normally happens because as they spar they constantly create a conflict between their mind and their natural reflexes. Also, their kung fu movements are not coordinated with their subconscious mind.

*** No experience no connection!

Or some other of those guys would start doing some kind of a kick-boxing, which has nothing to do with the styles they'd practiced, and came from their earlier (sometimes even childhood) experiences.

The things we have naturally learned in the Early Age usually stay with us for Good. ( like riding a bicycle etc)

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So, to come back to what was said before,

if we spent the Majority of our Training Time practicing the Basics primarily that way, (even for a number of years) we would find it difficult to apply the Wing Chun techniques Freely in a Real Fight.

It would also greatly Limit our mobility and our ability of using the techniques at will at Certain Moments, because this Process is controlled by Conscious Mind.

But, in Real-Fighting, everything happens Subconsciously, as a Reaction of our body to some Unexpected Action.

Its like learning the language where you practice to say some letters, words, some short phrases, but never actually engage in conversation where you have to be able to speak freely according to the second party.

But first, we Have to be trained this way in order to learn the Basic Movements and Coordinate them all with our Conscious Mind, (to record them in our memory bank) and then, in order to be able to use them Freely and Subconsciously, we should climb up another stair, another Major Exercise.


And that is

CHI-SAU (sticking hands) Exercise is a very important Training Process with no fixed movements, which aims primarily at developing Subconscious Reflex Actions that are neither planned beforehand nor consciously pre-thought.

Therefore, CHI-SAU Training enables us to co-ordinate the Wing Chun Hand Techniques with our Automatic Subconscious Reaction.

Also, an important role of CHI-SAU Practice is... a Principal of "Sticking" or controlling an opponents arms, relying on sensitivity of our arms, which greatly increases our ability to detect an opponents force and the direction in which it is going, and to Redirect it with Minimum Afford thus Conserving the Energy rather than waste it.

- This Principal also enables us to deal with much Faster or Stronger Opponents.

CHI-SAU also teaches us a few Basic Skills of Free-Fighting:

* Flowing in motion. (Using hand techniques freely and fluidly)

* Knowledge of correct use of energy.

* Proper positioning.

* Reaction.

Besides the Martial Aspect, CHI-SAU is a good - Body-Training Exercise, - stress reducing, - health promoting and - fun to practice.

But, once again, if we spent Most of our Training Time practicing Only CHI-SAU, we would Never develop all other Essential qualities of Real-Combat, and wouldn't be able to use All our Limbs Equally Well.

CHI-SAU should be regarded Only as a Bridge between - Forms, - Hand Techniques and - Free Fighting.

• But, could actually CHI-SAU bridging linkage be skipped?

• Could we go from the forms and hand techniques straight to Free-fighting practice and train everything there?

Well, we probably Could !

But the Time Factor would be a problem !

- That would take much Longer Time to acquire the Skills, - We would probably never grasp the Concept of "Sticking" well enough. - And it would be much more difficult to develop an Acute Sensitivity of the arms, because in Free Fighting you naturally concentrate on rather different things.

Once again, speaking about Efficiency of Real-Fighting, practicing CHI-SAU is NOT even close enough to obtain the Essential Qualities required for Real Combat.

Yes. - Its a great Training Process, but it is still just a game, just another Transitional Phase.

*** CHI SAU Training should NOT be regarded as an "Ultimate Exercise".

Some WC people say: - "if you can Play CHI-SAU Well enough then supposedly you can deal with Any Possible Real-Fighting Situation".

Well, good luck to them!

We say:

• It just does Not happen this way!

• It's an illusion and far from Reality !
  

In Reality, you may deflect a couple of attacks of an amateur and run away. - Its true.

- But what if you can Not run away?

- What if you must Protect your Family?

- What if you ever meet a good Experienced Fighter? (not mention a Professional one)

- How about Multiple Opponents, or attackers with Weapons? ( all those who will never let you escape that easy)

• So, that would be quite another game to play!

And besides, CHI-SAU involves mostly Arms and Hands.
But in a Real Combat we cannot rely on Arms only, even with Body Turning.

- Just imagine that for whatever reason you can Not use your arms !

For example, your arms can be -grabbed and -held by two much stronger opponents, or -tight up behind your back, or -injured, or even -broken in a fight, if you try to block a real powerful spinning roundhouse kick of a huge opponent by using Gaun Sau or even "more safe" Kwun Sau.

You can say: - "well, if I cannot use my arms then I will start kicking!" - Yes. - You sure will !

But the problem is that while concentrating on CHI-SAU most of the Training Time and practicing Kicking and Leg-drills just a Part of the Total Training Time would leave your legs thus leg-techniques Not Sufficiently developed for an Efficient use.

Even if you spent a bit more time alone working on your leg techniques by kicking sandbags and kicks in the air would be Not Enough either.

- Why?

Because trying to land a real precise and powerful kick on a constantly and fast-moving opponent, or defending with legs Effectively in Real Speeds is quite a different skill, and Requires some Specific Training.

So, in order to have an ability to use our legs skillfully, just like our arms, we need to climb another stair - another training exercise...

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CHI-GERK (sticking leg) Exercise is the same as CHI-SAU, but concentrating on leg movements and leg techniques, thus developing all the needed qualities for a subconscious fluid legwork, including development of a good Balance.

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After getting comfortable with CHI-SAU and CHI-GERK exercises, we start to practice a mixed CHI-SAU / CHI-GERK exercise where we try to use all our limbs equally busy. This time its a four limbs game, which also greatly helps us to develop an ability to see and feel low level kicks and knee strikes.

- We strongly believe that through CHI-GERK exercise and some Specific Training Legs can be trained to be as flexible as Arms.

So, we are almost there on the next level.
But there is one more stair to climb to reach the next floor, and that's another exercise...

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FREE-FIGHTING Practice.

We believe that a Free-fighting Training, at a Certain Advanced Level Only, is the Most Important one of all the exercises, because it brings us as close as it can get to a Real-Life-Fighting, and really allows us to connect and coordinate all the Wing Chun movements with our natural Body-mind, with our natural Reflexes, and with the Principals of Real Combat, which makes the body as one united Mechanism -- a Fighting Machine.

• Why do we have to connect Wing Chun Techniques with Natural Reflexes and with the Principles of Free-fighting?

Because the Real-True Fighting is like its own martial art style where you use Minimum Techniques very skillfully for Maximum Efficiency.

And as its been mentioned before it has a bunch of its own Principles, which has more to do with - Mentality and Psyche, - Mobility and good Reaction.



And, an extension of the Free Fighting Practice is

FREE-FIGHTING against MULTIPLE OPPONENTS Practice. This practice also has Additional Principles and rules that have to be learned and connected with the whole set of Wing Chun movements, and some Serious Specific Training is Essential.

If you ever have to fight for Real in the streets, then more likely than not you will have to face Several Attackers or One, but with some Weapons, or even worse - Many and Armed.

Remember, -Those guys have their own rules and agendas as well. -They also want to minimize their risk. -They have some special strategies and plans.

Whats more, - Some of them learn different martial arts just like us.

God Forbid, but if you ever have to face such a Dangerous Life-threatening Encounter and hope to Survive that, then...

* Only a Serious Training Approach is a Must !

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GROUND-FIGHTING.

Our Own Ground-Fighting Method. This can also be counted as a sub-style with many Extras. Although this Practice is based on Wing Chun Principles and Concepts, it is still another dimension with different from WC positions and movements. So, a Special Training is needed also.

- We start the Basics of this Practice from the very Beginning !

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WEAPONS.

We use all the Principals and Concepts for the Defense against Weapons.

Since concentrating on Self-Defense and Combat, we carefully study how to work against Today's Weapons such as, -baseball Bets, -Sticks, -Knifes, Guns, etc

We also learn how to use the Common Objects you can find in your -house, on the -streets, in you -pockets, on your -desk etc as Defensive Weapons such as, -books, -pens, -wallets, -belts, -credit cards, -calms, -keys, -begs, -hats, -jackets, etc

* Even a coin can be a great weapon!

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We also learn how to use Specially designed "Butterfly Sticks" for Self-Defense, especially against Multiple Opponents or Attackers with Weapons.

And learning how to convert Wing Chun Long-Pole techniques to Any stick-like objects (-umbrellas, -shovels, -mops etc), may also give us an Extra Skill.