Who Goes First?

One of my students had asked me about the range efficiency of Wing Chun in class last Saturday.

She is a very proficient boxer who has amazing hand speed and footwork. Her question launched us into a conversation about the illusion of Wing Chun being a close quarter combat art only and not having ground skills or skills against a distance fighter, such as a boxer.

She had inquired how Wing Chun deals with someone who uses footwork to enter, attack and leave to reposition themselves for their next attack...i.e. boxing footwork.

I asked her to take her boxing stance and I took my Wing Chun guard. I told her we would "spar" at 50% ability to determine not who is better, rather if her boxing footwork served her well in the "in and out" attacking fashion against someone who is in a fixed position like Wing Chun.

The long of the short of the story is that she found out how effective Wing Chun's smothering, bridging the gap and crowding power do to negate all her attacks and destroy her defenses.

But what lead off the exchange was her brilliant question...

She stood there and began bouncing on her toes, eyes and guard razor focused and ready to start attacking me. Up and down she bounced. We were about 3 feet from each other. She bounced and I merely stood in place.

After about 15 seconds of doing nothing but bouncing and waiting, she asked, "Well, who goes first?"

BOOM! That in itself was the whole point of the lesson! If contact (from a Wing Chun perspective) cannot be made, and there is sufficient room to avoid contact, a Wing Chun person will not bridge the gap first.

Once contact is made, however so slight (as she felt having all of her jabs stuffed back into her) Wing Chun's Chi Sau training comes to life allowing the practitioner to "feel" and employ all training.

If you move first, you risk getting counter attacked at the point where your first movement is finishing.

In a perfect world we could finish every fight with the "one punch, one kill" mentality. But where Wing Chun excels at is recovery...what happens IF your initial strike does not do the job.

Everything we train for in Wing Chun after we learn the Centerline Punch is to learn recovery. Pak Sau, Tan Sau, Gan Sau and most of all Bong Sau are all re-directional movements for incoming energy and NOT blocks.

In Wing Chun we either move around the energy or redirect it so we can continue to our next strike. This is why Wing Chun does not move backwards and shifts as much as it does. This is why we train on the Wooden Dummy...NOT to harden our arms, rather to understand postion better as well as learning to continually chase the center and not the arms. Furthermore, the slower and softer you train on the Wooden Dummy, the better your skill becomes.

I explained to my student that although the boxing footwork is effective, the potential danger for it in a street fight is perpetually present.

I have never seen a bar fight that started with boxing footwork.

Any time I had to place someone under arrest I approached them flat footed for balance and not on the balls of my feet. If they struggled with me, I did not disengage with them and start dancing like a boxer.

When you are in close proximity and / or contact with someone it may not be the best option to disengage with them and start dancing if you feel them pressing forward into you. You are sacrificing balance.

You have to take in account that 99% of all fights end up on the ground. Wing Chun is anti grappling as it learns to use structure to stay on our feet with re-directing movement and using our shift instead of risking balance by elusive footwork.

The hand speed training of Wing Chun almost always over shadows the importance of its footwork. Without understanding the Wing Chun footwork, its the same as trying to throw bullets at a bad guy instead of shooting them out of your gun.

Dominick Izzo
Izzo Training Systems
Wing Chun Self Defense Chicago and the NW Suburbs
www.izz-training.com

Be Like Water?

We heard him say it in Enter the Dragon... "Be like water."

What did Bruce Lee mean when he said that? We should be soft, yet crash into our enemy? In part yes.

Bruce Lee took this from the hard and soft values of what Wing Chun trains for.

All of my attacks come from my centerline. My focal point which I am aiming at and protecting is my sternum-core. From this place I aim and fire as well as protect. If you get an angle on me and flank me, I am internally focusing my sternum-core onto you and launching my attack from where ever it is.

My internal energy, which we have learned to develop in Sil Lim Tao, has stored an infinite supply of 50 calibur rounds inside of my centerline and now are waiting to be blasted forward to destroy my enemy. The exit points where these rounds can be fired from are directed by my sternum-core.

Picture the belt round feed that goes into a machine gun. This is the infinite ammo I have stored in my Dan Tien. It is fed through my spine and directed out my sternum-core out either shoulder, elbow and wrist. Either of these points, shoulder, elbow, wrist, can fire these rounds either independantly or together (energy in opposite directions learned from Biu Jee.)

So where does the "be like water" fit in?

It does not have to do with being soft in an attack, persay. If we are too soft, too "zen" in an attack, our enemy will simply overtake our line and crush us with pure power and force. We must hold our centerline with structure if needed. Waterlike comes from firing an attack and then being met with a possible block such as pak sau. If our incoming attack is met with force, we must "shut off" energy (as we learn in drills such as pak / da and the Chum Kiu form) and re-direct our bullet feed.

Visualise firing a centerline punch at me. Feel as I pak sau to the outside of your forearm and attempt to jam into your core. Your first weapon to fire your rounds was your fist that you fired the punch from. At this point you can withdraw the punch and fire the other hand...or you can be like water and continue the flow of the attack.

If I pak your wrist at the forearm you now can continue, as water does, by sending your ammo out of your elbow and attack while closing in and continuing to fire.

Being like water is continuing the attack after meeting resistance to your initially fired weapon.

Being like water is you continuing your attack through developed sensitivity training so you will not have to back up when in contact with your enemy and can continue to smother him and apply Yiu Ma (hip / waist energy) through shifting.

99% of all fights do end up on the ground. Understanding how to develop your continuation of attack with "being like water", shifting, structure and understanding Yiu Ma will keep you on your feet.

Dominick Izzo
Izzo Training Systems

Wing Chun Self Defense for Chicago and the NW Suburbs
www.izzo-training.com

The Pak / Da Drill

One of the basic drills in Wing Chun Kung Fu training is the "Pak / Da" Drill. This drill is taught in the beginning of a student's training and can be done at any stage of learning to develop your skill.

The drill is relatively simple in application, however like most drills does several things at once.

The drill is simply this: two students stand facing each other. One student places out a centerline punch (usually with the right hand) and the other student meets that punch with an outside pak sau (left hand.) The other student then punches right handed and the other student meets the punch with the free hand pak sau. Repeat ad nauseum. That's it. Or so the visual eye would think.

Here is what the drill is teaching:

Centerline. As I strike at my partner's centerline, sternum height for the drill's sake, he in turn must learn to protect it by meeting it with a pak sau from his centerline. This shows us the "shortest distance route" being a straight line.

Energy. Once I am pak sau'd, it is my job to feel and correct my partner by feeling where his energy is going. Is he "pushing" to the side? Down? Into my center or core? These are things that I must learn to pick up for sensitivity.

Balance. Am I punching out too far, causing me to lose balance? Is my stance rooting energy correctly back into the ground, supporting my balance? If I am pak sau'd into my center and I do not "turn off energy" and continue to muscle my punch, my partner will me able to jam my energy back into me and take my balance. Hence the effectiveness of forward energy being applicable to any movement and why we train the strike first and always.

Sensitivity. When do I know when to pak or punch? I have to feel it. If I place out a punch and my partner has his pak sau placed on my forearm, I must now wait and "feel" when he puts out his punch. This is one of the first training methods we use to learn the value of "sticking" and "leaving" our strikes out there, rather than snapping it like a jab and returning it to our core. If there is no contact, I will not be able to feel when he moves and will be left to using only a visual means of tracking a punch.

My Energy. In order to feel anything, I must learn to "turn off" my energy the second it meets resistance. Not just contact, but resistance. If in combat you put out a punch and you meet passive resistance, blow right through it. However, pak / da drill teaches you the to turn off your energy when you meet an incoming energy.

There are numerous other ideas that this simple drill is teaching us that we will develop over time the more we train it, footword, angling, jamming, switching into using the same hand to recover and then attack and more.

Drills can be at times more important than chi sau. Returning to the basics will is solidifying your foundation and returining to the idea of what Wing Chun is...ending the fight fast, effective and devastatingly.

Dominick Izzo
Izzo Training Systems
Wing Chun Self Defense for Chicago and the NW Suburbs

www.izzo-training.com

Bruce Lee

Forever will the name of Bruce Lee be synonymous with changing the face of martial arts. Respected by millions, the father mixed martial arts, creator of Jeet Kune Do and movie legend has inspired millions and motivated just as many to pursue an undying passion for using their bodies as instruments of perfection, harmony and interconnection with the universe.

Having those "props" gotten out of the way, I can now state personally that I never was a Bruce Lee fan.

I have nothing negative to say about him, but he did not affect me in my youth the way he did so many others. I never grew up on his movies and when they were on, I actually used to change the channel.

I didn't get involved in martial arts because of Bruce Lee, nor did I ever strive to become like him.

Talking negatively about Bruce Lee, or not giving him undying credit, seems to be a sin in the martial arts community.

Here is what Bruce Lee was to me: beyond influential and very charismatic. His influence can not be denied. After all, in an era of karate and judo, for Bruce to bring his kung fu to the American forefront was timing that couldn't have been any better.

When I strip away the flash and fan fair of the man who we make a deity, I actually see a kid who was nothing more than a free thinking individual.

After all, wasn't "his" martial art all about stripping away in-essentials? Strip away all from him and wasn't he just a guy who opened his mind and looked at something in "his own way"?

If you and I look at a tree, we see the exact same tree...but based on angle, lighting, depth...won't we see two completely different trees?

Bruce Lee studied Wing Chun, fact. Bruce Lee wrote that although he trained under Ip Man, he thought of Wong Shun Leung as his teacher, fact.

Bruce Lee left for America with Sil Lim Tao, Chum Kiu (the first two Wing Chun form) and chi sau (sensitivity drills), fact. I have read several articles about Bruce Lee having amazing skill, hand speed and sensitivity in the Wing Chun community. But the fact remains that he did not finish his Wing Chun training.

Evidence of his in-completion can be found in the photo of Bruce Lee doing a Gan Sau / Tan Sau movement on the Wooden Dummy. His structure is almost folded in half at his waist, indicating no use of his hips. However, yes I know he understood hip power as seeing him hit a heavy bag is proof enough.

And his famous video of his 1 inch punch shows him front leg heavy and over extended in his punch, granted effective, but not Wing Chun.

So my personal thought is, "what would Bruce Lee's outlook on martial arts and 'classical mess' be if he had finished his Wing Chun training and actually understood Wing Chun?" Bruce Lee did not fully understand the Wing Chun system, therefore did not have a conclusive enough base to draw from.

The Jeet Kune Do community is not far off from the Wing Chun community in that almost no one agrees with the other. I find that a bit interesting considering that Bruce Lee wanted harmony and to undo the classical mess of martial arts. How ironic that his very own martial art is plagued with this problem.

And what about the notion that he "created" a martial art?

Bruce Lee brought Wing Chun to white America, who had not seen it before him, and called it his own. Bruce Lee's Wing Chun became Jeet Kune Do. His implementation of other martial arts were simply his opinion for how HE could fight better. All of the Jeet Kune Do "concepts" are from Wing Chun. The fact that he was in the stage of his life where he was mentally invincible (his 20's and full of testosterone) also had a huge role. What would happen if he had matured and grown with life experience? Would he have looked back and said, "I need to re-read what I have not yet finished?" So, by not having the information the Chinese already knew in America, it was very easy for him to "create" a martial art.

What Bruce Lee was phenomenal at was his physicality. He was a freak of fitness and that allowed him to do things no other human could. Doing so affected his way of seeing his own ability. It would be and is impossible for him to have taught another human being to act or think like him unless they possessed the same physical ability. Bruce Lee was an anomaly and his thinking was not ahead of his time, more so was within his ability to deduce from the information he had at hand.

Wong Shun Leung was noted to have been the one person Bruce Lee could not "best" during training. Again, what would Bruce Lee have been or thought if he could have completed training in Wing Chun.

For Jeet Kune Do to think that it has branched off or evolved from Wing Chun is actually a very incorrect statement. Evolution cannot be achieved without exhausting all known resources...forcing a need for change and growth. Jeet Kune Do is a mutation of Wing Chun.

There will never be another Bruce Lee. But the problem I have with immortalizing this man is that somewhere in the world there is some kid who is training with all the passion he has...he is thinking and feeling and thinking and feeling and he is trying to make his martial art "his own."

This kid may have an amazing perception and think differently than the rest of us. But he will never get due credit, because of course, anything after Bruce Lee has is just a duplicate.

Funny, I wonder how many people back in China thought the same thing of Bruce Lee.

What Bruce Lee was the first at was publicly recognizing that is was ok to cross train. I will give Bruce Lee credit for the fact that he was brave and bold enough to give traditional martial arts the middle finger and say, "I want to play in other sandboxes."

Personally, I wish he had finished his training.

Dominick Izzo
Chief Instructor
Izzo Training Systems
Wing Chun Self Defense for Chicago and the NW Suburbs
www.izzo-training.com