“The other major thing that gives these limited sports martial arts a huge edge over Wing Chun is pure athleticism.”
MMA Fighter

A few years ago, I did an extended email interview with a guy I’d trained with for a little while.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get to train with him too much as this was around the time I had to take a year off due to a shoulder injury.

His was an interesting perspective because he’d trained extensively in MMA before switching to Wing Chun plus he’s a very smart, articulate guy.  Because so many online voices are critical of Classical martial arts versus the “MMA style,” I was really curious about why he’d switched and his perspective on Wing Chun’s training methods.

My questions are in red italics.

>>>Beginning of Interview<<<

At the novice level of training, the classes would spend about 45 minutes teaching you basic techniques: the mechanics of a jab, cross, hook, round kick, etc. At the end of the class we’d do some very simple one step sparring for 15 min or so.  Similar to what you see in Kung Fu classes.  I throw the cross, you slip and counter hook/cross.   Something like that.

Students usually only stayed in this foundational phase for a month or two.  Then you’d move to the regular classes.  The regular classes were structured similarly.  We’d spend about 30 minutes going over some combinations or ideas for attack/defense strategy and then we’d spend 30 minutes doing some sparring.

The class would be generally split in half. The people with less experience going to one side of the room and their sparring would still be a sort of one step sparring but random.  For example, you launch some combination of attacks.  I defend and let you finish, then its my turn.  Similar to what we do (in Wing Chun). The more advanced side of the room would be free sparring at 50% – 75% power.

I think the beauty of this gym’s approach was that they designed their classes so that everyone had contact EVERY SINGLE CLASS. It made people good fast. It took away all the pent up desire to go balls to the wall that I’ve seen in other schools where they spar once a week and everyone can’t wait to throw down. It was nice, steady, and progressive.”

Photo courtesty of Chris at Flickr. Click to see attribution info.

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“For learning the wooden dummy…most people think they will practice their arm very strong … I can break the opponent’s arm!  It’s wrong.
In Wing Chun, all the touching is angle.  When you touching your angle and using your power point to help your structure you save a lot of energy and you won’t be using force against the force of your opponent….If I am an old man but my angle is correct … I can take your position and hit you out very easy.”
Gary Lam, Complete Wooden Dummy DVD

The Wing Chun Wooden Dummy is a widely misunderstood tool.

Although it’s used in other systems of Chinese martial arts, such as Hung Gar and Choy Li Fut, the Wooden Dummy (or Mook Yan Jong) is the signature tool of the Wing Chun system and one of the most important pieces of equipment a Wing Chun fighter uses to develop their skill.

But from what I see on Youtube, most people are using this equipment incorrectly.  In this article, I’ll describe the mistakes people make and the correct use of this iconic training tool.

Ip Man brought the concept of the Wing Chun Wooden Dummy with him from Foshan to Hong Kong, but he didn’t bring any actual dummies.  In fact, I think he barely escaped the communists with the clothes on his back!  He’d been a military policeman for the Guomindang, the political party which fought the communists for power before losing in the late 1940s.  So when the communists won, he had to get out of the country fast.

Master Ip learned how to “play” the Wooden Dummy from Chan Wah Chun on a buried dummy (such as the one Donnie Yen plays in the first Ip Man film).

The frame mount version most of us were trained on was developed after Master Ip moved to Hong Kong with the assistance of a carpenter (Fung Shek).  Master Ip was no longer wealthy and lived and taught in high rise apartments, so it wasn’t practical to bury a dummy in your floor, as it would be sticking out of the ceiling of your downstairs neighbor.

Different teachers utilize the dummy at different points in the curriculum, but in the Wong Shun Leung lineage, it’s usually introduced at the intermediate stage, somewhere between the Siu Lum Tao and Chum Kiu forms are taught (or just after CK).

I think many people have only learned the system for a year or two and often have not had proper training in the use of this equipment.  So they train on it the way they think it should be used, which is often incorrectly and of little use.  Yet people are excited by this tool, so they like to film themselves beating on it!

Looks cool, right?

Here is a list of the top 5 mistakes people make in their Wing Chun Wooden Dummy training.

#1     They use the Wooden Dummy to “condition” their arms.

I’ve seen this in person and on the internet.  Someone beats the crap out of the dummy, making a lot of noise and causing the dummy to slide wildly on its rails.  While this looks (and sounds) impressive, its wrong and a misapplication of time and energy.

Sifu Gary Lam, tells a story about his teacher, Wong Shun Leung (legendary street fighter of Hong Kong).  One of Sifu Wong’s students always practiced on the Wooden Dummy with a lot of force.  One day, he hit the dummy so hard, one of its arms broke off.  “He very happy and then bring the broken arm to my Sifu.  Sifu, I did it!  I broke the arm!”  Wong looked at the student, took the arm and thumped the student on the head with it, and said, “Now we have to buy a new one!”

The idea that you want to “toughen” your arms by hitting the dummy calls to mind the sort of Iron Palm and Iron Body Chi Gung practices of other Chinese fighting systems.  This is not the purpose of this equipment in the Wing Chun system.

Wing Chun is a system of deflection.

We use angle to deflect incoming power.  This is one of our “secrets.”  Wing Chun does not fight power with power.  It fights power with re-direction.  This is why, as Sifu Lam says above, even if the Wing Chun fighter is an old man, they can still use the fighting technology of the system to overcome a bigger, stronger fighter.  The Wing Chun fighter deflects incoming attacks, not intercepting the power but sending the power off at an angle.

This is one of the ways we “let the power go.”

Sifu Gary Lam often used the story of a Mercedes – Honda crash to illustrate this point.

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Be quick to end the fight.
Wing Chun Kuen Kuit

Among some fight enthusiasts, its considered an indisputable fact that if you want to be a good fighter, you must spar.

Of course, different people mean different things by this idea of “sparring,” ranging from from the lightest contact that is practically shadowboxing to training with gloves that results in the occasional accidental knockout.

As usual with training, what we really need to do before we get going is consider our goals versus the downsides.

What do you want?  How bad do you want it?  Can you make some trade-offs and get most of the way there?

Consider these three points.

#1  CTE

The recent science surrounding CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in football and boxing show pretty clearly that you are taking a bit of a risk when you engage in activities where your head gets hit repeatedly.  Every hit could reach a potential harvest of personality degradation.  Are you a pro fighter or planning to become one?  Even many pros are avoiding full contact in training these days.  And there is evidence that more brain injuries happen in training than in matches (which makes sense, since you train way more than you actually fight in the ring).

I’m not certain about the odds involved here.  We have all seen cases but they seem to be a small percentage.  Still, who wants a sort of induced dementia?

Maybe there is hope — check out this device (inspired by the way woodpecker’s protect their brains from CTE by wrapping their long tongues around their head and neck).

#2  Its Still Not “Real” and May Mess Up Your Quality of Life

If you aren’t training for the ring, then you should really consider carefully many of your training decisions.  A lot of amateur fighters (and by amateur, I mean never plan to get into a ring) still get so caught up in the training cycle they cause themselves the sort of injuries which debilitate pros.  Chronic tendon injuries.  Injuries to cartilage and other connective tissue.  Brain injuries, as above.  Wing Chun was designed to enable you to become a proficient fighter without  these problems.  The fighters who helped evolve our system came up with sayings like “to be fast, train slow.”  They invented Chi Sao (a way to train reflexes without hitting one another).  Despite it being a system dedicated to striking the head and training limb destruction, I’ve only seen one really debilitating injury in 16 years of training, and that was due to carelessness and hubris.

#3  For Wing Chun Fighters, Sparring May Create Bad Habits

For me, this is the kicker.  Wing Chun’s fighting strategy is an instant and relentless attack which is meant to be over very quickly.  We basically don’t back up or stop.  But sparring will teach you to hover outside and rush in, then back out.  Sparring by its very nature is like this.  Wing Chun doesn’t want to break contact with the opponent at all.  People who spar are always playing in and out of the various ranges.  They do a lot of feinting, because feinting is a luxury.  Wing Chun does not feint.  People also devolve to this approach in Chi Sao.  This is a mistake.  Wing Chun is a short blast system.  This is why its not very useful to help you win slap fights with your friends.  It will help you a great deal if you decide to knock your friend out!  Wing Chun chases the target into the grave!

How do we learn to fight without “sparring?”

That’s why Chi Sau/ Gwoh Sau were invented!

Of course, despite all of the above, I agree that the best way to become a good fighter is to fight and the closer you can scoot up to the line of a real no-holds-barred fight in your training or experience, the better.  The question is, what are you willing to sacrifice to become a good fighter?  The further you go to the main event, the more you risk teeth, concussion, and other sorts of serious damage.   My approach is to become the best I can be short of catching any real damage, understanding this entails accepting the limitations of this approach.