I heard that Ip Man felt he peaked as a fighter when he was 50 years old.

The reason why he peaked then is interesting for our approach to fighting.

When you are young, you can muscle things and make them work. This is why the fighters in the UFC are all young men. They are take a bunch of unrelated disciplines (wrestling, boxing, muay thai, ju jitsu) and make them work together through the sheer force of their youth and conditioning.

Male muscular strength peaks around 35. I think endurance peaks much earlier. As you age and lose physical strength, as a fighter, you are forced to replace that declining youthful strength with skill in the form of structure and other qualities. Skill has to take the place of muscle.

There is a laundry list of skills which make up a good fighting system: structure, timing, proper organization of the hands, aggression, forward pressure, turning, stable footwork, and so on. As you develop these, you can not only keep up with the young fighters who still have their youthful powers, you can get ahead of them. You can do things that seem like magic to people who haven’t developed them yet.

These capabilities can allow you to dominate the kids who still have their youthful flexibility and muscle power but don’t have the skills yet.

Martial prowess is a race between knowledge and age. A trained 60 year old may beat an untrained 25 year old.

Maybe.

Ip Man’s story is interesting to me because it underlines the difference between training like a UFC fighter and training in a complete system like Wing Chun.

You need to train structure and timing and the more subtle capacities and refuse to give in to your impulse to muscle fighting situations. If you muscle it, that will work now, but not later, when your body ages.

The whole point of learning a system like Wing Chun is that if you learn the refinements, like structure and timing and positioning and so on, it will still work when you are old, Even when you are very old. Even after you have passed your peak, you may be competitive against much younger fighters.

I’ve studied four systems of Wing Chun.

Admittedly, I never got to far in two of them (one month and a year and a half, respectively).

But in the third system, I basically went nearly as far as was possible.

Yet when I started studying the system that Greg got from Gary Lam via Wong Shun Leung, I found a whole bunch of extra stuff in it!

Gary Lam had added the Muay Thai, but there was a lot of material from Wong Shun Leung (and I assume Ip Man) I’d never seen before.  Outside of the mindset and the “taking position” ideas, I don’t think these elements are the most important aspects of the system, but it does give you a certain ability to flow with opportunity and to deal with adversity and changing fortunes.

What was missing from those other systems?

Pushing, pulling, tripping, standing grappling, and much of the kicking.  And Po Pai.

I think integration of pushing, pulling, kicking, Po Pai, trips, with hitting adds dimensionality and surprise to the system. You can see it in the demo from Wang Zi Peng (a Wong Shun Leung student who teaches in China) below. Most of the stuff in his demo is in the Wong Shun Leung system (we have Chokyu standing grappling), but Wang Zhi Peng may also be playing with some Shuai Jiao (Chinese system of grappling and throws).  This is what someone can do after they have mastered Wing Chun.  They can use it as a frame for their other skills and talents. It can all blend together into a personal expression (as Bruce Lee would say).

These are all actions of opportunity.  You don’t quite get into the right position, so their missed punch can turn into a pull.  If they get traction, you can switch to a push, or a trip, guiding their head into a wall of the ground.

If you miss one kick, you can go with another.  If you regain to the ground too close, you might have the opportunity to turn then and use a lock to disrup their balance.  It all depends on what the opponent and the moment gives you in terms of opportunities.

But at the highest level, this ability to move between ranges and find opportunities at any distance is something beautiful to behold.

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“Chi Sau should teach us how to hit and not stick endlessly to our opponent’s arms.  It should teach us to take the balance of our opponent while we preserve our own balance.”
John Smith and Greg LeBlanc, “Get Out of the Chi Sau Bubble.” WC Illustrated

I recently had a discussion with Ben, an SvC reader, and he included a link to the sparring match below and said “It’s this kind footage that adds to the bad reputation of WC.”

I agreed and thought it was a good subject for an article.  I started off writing “Why Wing Chun Sparring Sessions Suck,” but then I caught myself and watched the video a few more times.

I realized its easy to fall into the thought process that this fight explains or is an example of the general Wing Chun versus the general Boxing.  But really, no one person can represent their whole approach to fighting!

So I started looking at this as two fighters in a bout.  First off, although they call it boxing, I am pretty sure the tall guy is Muay Thai.  How many boxers wear those instep guards?  He’s not kicking because he doesn’t have to – he has a six inch reach advantage (at least).  Plus he is much taller.  His opponent can barely reach his head!

Lets start with kudos to anyone who wants to fire test their skills.  So lets give the “Wing Chun” guy an A for effort.  Of course, in this fight, he clearly does many things wrong (like getting knocked out).  But, in all fairness, when you put yourself in a position to be punched in the face, even with gloves and rules, many people will lose half their skills.  This goes for real fights too.  You will forget half your skills and gas out in a tenth of the time.  Adrenalin gives and takes away.

Fighters who spar as part of their training (Boxing, Muay Thai, BJJ, etc) are naturally more relaxed and manage their energy better, because they are just doing what they do.  They have been here before.

I’m pretty sure the Wing Chun guy has been mostly doing Chi Sao.  He is trying to figure out, on the fly, with punches coming in, how to transfer his Wing Chun to this situation.  He is walking up to his opponent’s guard and trying to figure out how to get a bridge.  How to clear that guard.  How to avoid those counter punches.  How to deal with that reach.  He obviously doesn’t have a clear plan.

OK, having praised him a little, lets critique this guy.

Wing Chun is a bare knuckle bone-on-bone (as Hawkins Cheung said) system.  Wing Chun strikes are not the hardest possible way to hit (pretty sure the hardest possible punch is a cross from the rear hand with good leg support and body weight shift with some torque).  Jab Jab Cross.  Wing Chun sacrifices power for other attributes (two handed simultaneous attack/defense and chained attacks, etc).

But to work, you must get into a particular range and then punch elbow done on a clean line.  All the CHi Sao is to help you develop reflexes to find or make that clean line.  This guy never gets a line.

Gary Lam said that the number one most important element of Wing Chun is taking position.  This is where Wing Chun derives its striking power. Taking position means stepping in with your body weight (when you have found a clear line of attack via your other skills) and punching into and through the opponent’s head.  This guy never takes position or affects his opponent’s balance.

You have to mow them down!

The WC guy doesn’t ever deliver any power because he does not control the distance.  The other guy keeps the fight in his comfort zone.

Wing Chun works by eating the opponent’s position (Seg Wai), throwing them off-balance, and forcing them to defend, rather than continue their attack at their leisure.  This is why you’ll often see in my videos or illustrations, I mimic this situation of my whole body being canted at a 20 degree angle on the end of a punch, the hitter stepping in.

Wing Chun is the science of in-fighting!  This is our specialty and this is our goal.  Like the alligator which pulls the victim from the land into the water, dragging it down to the bottom where it has the advantage, Wing Chun skills are largely designed to be used inside our range and finish it there quickly.

You have to get into your chosen range (bent elbow distance) and stay there until the fight is over.  If the guy is dancing away, you need to chase his center and stay close.  Chase his back leg.

PS — this isn’t easy!

 

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