You may have heard me say before that if I wasn’t doing Wing Chun (which basically takes a lifetime to “master,” especially if you start late, as I did), I would love to study Silat.
It has many similarities and shared techniques and ideas with Wing Chun and Kali (and Escrima).
I like how it flows and the smoothness of their transitions and how they are always moving and combining strikes with destruction techniques and taking position and uprooting. A sequence can involve all of these, as the technician moves deeper and deeper into the opponent’s “territory” (from the third to the second to the first gates).
There is a lot of stuff in the later levels of Wing Chun that involves getting inside the stance of the opponent and uprooting, but I would enjoying learning some of these techniques for destabilizing the standing opponent when you are down.
I think you have to supplement Wing Chun (a striking and standing grappling and kicking art) with some skills to prevent takedown and to get back up if you are taken down and some basic ground game to stay alive if you find yourself tackled. Saying “they can’t take me down” is silly.
I don’t feel the need to be a BJJ black belt for my purposes, but it makes sense to me to have a few skills for every range.
Its the same logic that has me practicing a little knife now and then, and some stick, and going to the gun range once in a blue moon. They are not my specialty, but I’m competent.