 FWC詠春拳対総合格闘技I often get asked how to fight a practitioner of a certain martial art
Today I’ll talk a little bit about how to pit two martial arts against each other. First, you could consider the strengths and weaknesses of that martial art. Then, you could consider what the strengths and weaknesses of your martial arts training are. N reality, what most people do is to focus on techniques, but techniques are often not what decides the outcome of a fight. How to fight an MMA practitioner using functional wing chun (FWC), the wing chun I teach. An MMA practitioner’s most important qualities are as follows: The ability to take a beating MMA is focused on overpowering the opponent while being entertaining. That means it’s more important to attack the opponent than to protect yourself. Superb cardio Because the opponent is similar strong to you and knows your techniques (allowed by the rules) and no matter how fierce looking the matches are, the fighters are only allowed to attack places where the body can handle it, that is, places the fighters can strengthen. Because the areas the fighters are allowed to attack are strengthened, and the opponent will also try to avoid getting punched and kicked (by punching, kicking or clinching), it takes cardio to keep attacking and finish the opponent. A strong will to fight: The more successful fighters often have a fighter's mindset. They are not afraid and love the adrenaline rush. That is, they are more focused on hurting the opponent than protecting themselves. Luck When two strong fighters fight each other, you can’t out rule luck. Lucky punches, lucky kicks, lucky mistakes by the opponent. To win the fight and show off to entertain the audience the fighters take great chances, and the importance of luck increase. Many of the cooler fight pictures are probably pictures of lucky fighters. Techniques/system: Only if the fighter has the qualities above will the techniques really start to matter. Because the opponent also has a high technical skill the techniques are less important. Both fighters know the same techniques and how to defend against them. So how does a practitioner of functional wing chun fight a strong MMA fighter?? We don’t train to take a beating; we don’t try to improve cardio very much and most people who learn self-defense don’t have a strong will to fight. They want to avoid it as much as possible. Let’s look at a functional wing chun practitioners most important abilities: Fighting strategy and tactics: Tactics are extremely important when fighting a stronger, armed or multiple opponents. Tactics are the blueprints of how to fight intelligently. Tactics give the FWC fighter the ability to avoid meeting the opponent when he is at his strongest and therefore maximize his own power and create the conditions that make wing chun easy to use. Tactics help the fighter overcome fear and start defending themselves. They know that all they need is to do is to take the first step, and the training will kick in and the body will fight automatically. Tactics will help the fighter focus on what really matters in a real fight. Not getting beaten up, not getting hurt! In real fighting the goal is not winning but ju to make the opponent give up fighting us! Tactics will also limit the luck part of the fight because we don’t take chances! Techniques: Fast and effortless footwork that can support our techniques and help us finish the fight in now time. Techniques that open our opponent’s defense so that we can attack the most vulnerable areas of their bodies, the parts that cannot be fortified. Techniques that don’t need a lot of power to do damage. Physical abilities: Not very important but the bigger and stronger you are, the easier it is. Instead of the ability to take a beating we practice avoiding getting punched and kicked and tackled. Cardio is important to health but less important for wing chun. The goal is to finish the fight fast. Back to the question, how to fight an MMA practitioner In any kind of competition, like under MMA rules, we are not very well prepared to fight an MMA fighter but in a real fight, where we would have to fight for our lives, we stand a very good chance. In FWC we specialize in super-fast footwork and techniques that target the most vulnerable body parts of the opponent, all while we focus on not getting punches or grabbed. As always, our goal would be to make the fighter stop fighting us or make him unable to continue fighting. Our main areas of focus are groin kicks to implement pain while avoiding permanent damage. Followed by kicks to the knees to limit the fighting ability of the opponent, since it’s hard to fight while limping, attacks to the eyes because it’s difficult to fight if your eyes are full of tears or perhaps damaged. Protecting the eyes is also a strong instinct so the opponent’s focus might shift to defense rather than offense. And last, attacking the throat can make it difficult to breathe but could also be lethal. So, they must be used with caution if you are somehow physically stronger than the opponent. Regular chain punches and kicks to other areas of a very strong experienced MMA practitioner’s body would probably be ineffective and not cause enough pain to make them give up fighting you. But the chained techniques serve a very important tactical purpose of confusing and stunning the opponent and enables a FWC fighter to get close enough to the opponent to attack vulnerable areas safely.  Stop thinking too much!
How to improve and how to teach wing chun Beginners often want to stop and think the techniques through. This is wrong and a terribly slow way of learning because it will reduce the number of repetitions you can do during the class and with less data (experience) you cannot understand the techniques fully. What to do instead of thinking too much about it During class: Remember how kids learn. You were a kid once. Do not overthink. Do not worry about making mistakes. Just COPY and REPEAT like a kid would At home or before/after class: Try to recall the last session and repeat the technique by yourself. Work on footwork, work using both arms at the same time. You learn to understand movements by doing them. After 2-3 months of training, you will have gathered enough experience to start thinking about how to execute and improve your technique. But in the beginning, try to turn your brain off and just enjoy moving. |
