Bad Press…..

October 21, 2009 | Archive, MMA Newcastle, martial arts newcastle, wing chun newcastle, Uncategorized

Reprinted from my blog on www.martialnews.co.uk I thought I might share this one with those of you who haven’t read it elsewhere.

Old Chinese master say "man why not you just switch on light, you must move with the times..."

Blog 2.

Every so often I manage to touch a nerve and get an email like this one (I have had to correct the spelling and grammar quite heavily but other than that this is a direct reprint) through my site cyclonewingchun.co.uk

“You’re right, that‘s not Wing Chun, what a f**KN insult to even call your club Cyclone Wing Chun.  If u take away the bases of Wing Chun like tan sao, bong sao and fok sao, then there certainly not going to have a lap sao, so where’s the Wing Chun. From a student of XXXXXXXX”

This email is in reference to the video entitled “This is not wing Chun” which is a bit of a joke in our club and amongst Chu Sau Lei circles. The fact we have put on some boxing gloves, sparred rounds, learned to grapple and embraced MMA as our competition format doesn’t mean we have abandoned the original system, in fact far from it, we consider ourselves to be utilizing far more of the system than most schools who teach this martial arts style.  When I first started regularly training with Alan Orr we used to laugh about how I would use modern terms to describe something that has a root in a system 300 years old.  Dirty boxing, double collar clinch, single collar clinch, shin checks, the many different angle punches used in MMA or in boxing were all being utilized by the Wing Chun system centuries ago. Once I added CSL body structure to the skills I’d developed in years of cross training many of the individual techniques I already knew started to make real sense. What’s more much of the seemingly useless stuff I’d learned in endless Chi Sao sessions prior to learning the Chu Sau Lei system started to become useful.  So where is the Wing Chun?

Our system indeed does not resemble many of the other systems of Wing Chun out there but I learned the other systems to a good standard, attained teaching stripes and ditched them, I tore up my black belt so to speak.  Why? Because the truth is the truth however you wrap it up. A few years ago  When one of the MMA  guys I was training with challenged me to use my Wing Chun to stop him taking me down (using a double leg shoot) I accepted and simply found nothing my system had taught me worked.  Pretty soon I learned to sprawl like everyone else. I now I have hip control and a better understanding of stopping the shoot through my Chu Saul Lei Wing Chun, I have some boxing options but hell I still have to sprawl when the guy in front of me is good at shooting.

I’ll make a bet the guy who emailed me there would argue you can’t throw hooking punches if you do Wing Chun and would try to defend them with tan sau and a stance shift, if tried against even a novice amateur boxer using this answer to a simple problem you’d  soon come unstuck in-fact you’d probably soon become unconscious.  Whilst training for a stand up fight with my good friend Craig Jose (The Faktory Gym) I worked solidly on my defence against a left hook.  The more I used Craig’s ideas the more I learned they were there in my system too. I just hadn’t looked in the right places.  This is what training in a realistic manner does for you, makes you ask questions, makes you try harder, delve deeper.  When you open your mind to other ideas the answers come and if you keep your mind open maybe you can learn something about your own system as well as someone elses.

So at just past the half way point I’ll show you my reply to the lad who started this blog off for me.

Hi Matthew, Every so often I get an email such as yours.

I could simply ignore it and not waste my time but for what it’s worth….Bong sau, Tan sau or even lap sau are not the base or basis of wing chun, the fundamental principles in the sil lim tao form and its progression through chum kiu and Bil Jee certainly are  but the misunderstandings so commonly held throughout the wing chun world about how the system is supposed to fight is staggering. The joke on my site of “This is not wing chun” is actually all about that.

I don’t know how long you have trained or to what intensity but just keep an open mind because I’ve trained with fighters from some of the best camps in the world and our wing chun (chu sau lei) is one of the few forms truly respected by the wider martial arts community.  Why? Well basically because we have fighters who have fought and won in MMA, Wing Chun Chi Sau tournaments, BJJ, Sub wrestling, Unlicensed boxing, ABA boxing, K1 and more.

Try what you have learned with some guys from other clubs, try it against a Muay Thai fighter or an MMA stylist in free sparring and see how you do?  one of the guys I train with Craig Jose is European Muay Thai Champ, another is northern counties Muay Thai heavy weight Champ, Bryan Moore long term training and sparring partner is 10th legion Pro MMA middle weight Euro champ.  I’ve fought and won in MMA, K1, BJJ, Judo, Sub wrestling. In all I’ve used CSL wing Chun to good effect.

I’ve built my club on genuine experience and I know how to use all the techniques you mentioned to a high level of skill although I very much doubt I would use them the way you might.

My own teacher Alan Orr has by far the best chi sau skill I’ve ever seen, and I’ve rolled with Sam kwok, Trevor Jefferson, Paul Smith, Alan Gibson all of which I had no problem matching whereas Alan Orr I can’t touch.

XXXXXXXX as I knew him years ago is a nice guy who teaches wing chun in a very traditional manner and we shared the same original teacher, . I did the same style of wing chun for many years before I switched to something I felt more suited to, Chu Saul Lei wing chun.  My reasons are well documented throughout my site.

So where’s the wing chun?? I honestly don’t think you actually have the first clue as to what Wing Chun really is, hopefully one day you may find out but first you’ll have to start looking a little harder.

All the best

Alex Wright

Our strap line is a little joke too, Kung Fu Fighter Evolved!! But it has a serious message and the more often I train with good practitioners of other systems the more parallels I find with ours, we see our styles evolve because when we stand still its only a matter of time before we start to go backwards.