Teddy Atlas is former boxer, trainer, and over-all character. He worked with Cus D’Amato and was there in upstate New York when Tyson trained there, until he left under somewhat mysterious circumstances. There is a story he tells about how he held a gun to Tyson’s head. Tyson has had various responses to that. Whatever! No one will know what really happened but those guys.
I do think Wing Chun fighters have something to learn from this style of fighting. In many ways, our style is similar. Done right, Wing Chun is aggressive, presses the action, but is also a bit of a counter-punching style (we seek the bridge). The big flaw I see in most Wing Chun “fights” available online is the so-called Wing Chun is often just chain-punching away without much discrimination. Done right, a Wing Chun fighter has the man sao/wu sau out in front as a triangular guard. Like Peek-a-Boo, we keep the elbows in. We shuffle forward, keeping our balance, keeping structure into the ground through the back foot. But what you often don’t see is discrimination in selecting targets. The way demonstrates Peek-a-Boo, you see the ducking/weaving/sidestepping behavior. Wing Chin is less active, yet we do angle for entry, angle a little back, and this is how we achieve that same goal of avoiding the incoming attacks and finding a new angle-of-attack.
But most importantly, we step in and attack but intelligently, not jumping onto the attack like a lemming. I think Greg once advised me not to “throw yourself to your doom.” You need to develop reflexes which will pick the timing for you. This is why you need to train a lot!
