19/6/2023 Wing Chun Kuen 詠春拳 – detail explanation of drills, forms, application and confrontation (i.e. their pros & cons).

By now, anyone should know what Wing Chun is, a close-quartered fighting art and very useful in self defence. The last syllable ‘Kuen’ 拳 imply that it is an art form and as such, the practitioner; not only have to exercise all the physical aspect, but also mental disciplin and creativity are also required. Wing Chun is at its best when the art is used within 2M square area( i.e., ‘the length of a lying cow 臥牛之地(Wing Chun’s battle ground)’ ) or less. However, outside this area, its effectiveness will subsides: other medium or long range attacking art may prove a lot more useful. In general, Wing Chun Kuen is a breaking/destroying art rather than a subdue ones like – wrestling/locking/ground fighting art and do not work well on the ground. Its fast tactile response and agile positional change makes it very popular to someone with a smaller physical stature and with reasonable agility.

The fundamental differences amongst the words drills, application and confrontation are not very clear cut at first and most people get confused quite easily. It is these misunderstanding that can led future injury, bad habits and incorrect thinking which can eventually harm oneself without realizing the underlying problem. The problem is the lack of knowledge of a particular art in question or knowledge that had not been acquired properly. So, lets set the scence:

Scenario 1 : Say, you bought a wooden dummy without any advice from your teacher as to how to use it: most likely you will hit the wooden arms and leg very hard and properly impacted with your bones more than your muscles; thinking that this way should harden or conditioned one’s own hands and legs. The reasonning is quite understandable, especially if you lived through the 80s (too many exaggerated hard-style martial art movies), plus the Youtube Channel offered similar content which may convince you that’s quite easy to copy and learn the Wooden Dummy Form. Unfortunately, no platform or technician or person would give you an accurate FULL data all the time. If you are lucky to come across some dedicated open-minded Sifu, he or she might disclose some useful data to the public. Well, that’s another story… A guy chose the above method without any guidance and severe pain occurred after many months of brutal solo practice. He ended up damaged both of his forearms (i.e. damaged capillaries) and his doctor told him not to bash anything at all and stay away from any semi/full contact sports of any kind. In the end, he had to give up Wing Chun which he loves very much! Sad, isn’t it! Had he asked his Sifu before buying the Wooden dummy and question why the pain suddenly appeared on the arms; rather than blindly belived that the pain is part of the learning process( yes, it is alright if the pain is ENTIRELY due to fatique); then he would have stopped his erraneous trainning and take the necessary time to recover.

Scenario 2 : A Wing Chun practitioner was so good at his drills that he got it to his head that it would be enough to deal with all kinds of unwanted situation. On one occasion, he stood on a Wing Chun guard but face square on with the attacker as you would do in a class drill: he got kicked in the groin, fell to the ground and subsequently received more kicks. Fortunately, his friends arrived and the attacker fled. He was lucky that his friends were close by.

Drills – in the initial stage of learning Wing Chun, it is very helpful in training the basic structure and fundamentals of the art. The drills teaches you how to execute techniques, move around accordingly(footwork), protect your vital organs and above all, be very focus in all relevant details and so on. However, drills can be too predictable, pattern fixed and consequently create over confident and complacency. It lacks the element of fear, combat readiness and seriousness in dealing a confrontation.

Application – the seasoned practitioner is able to implement a good technique(s) to resolve or eliminate a bad situation without receiving any harm whatsoever. However, the practitioner has to be well versed in the art of Wing Chun: he or she must be very skiful and courageous in order to have a successful outcome. Beside all that, the pratitioner need to have the right attitude to see it through the whole learning process and that will certainly take a decade or two to acquired the necessary skills. Only a handful of people with the correct mind set and personality can do this. Unfortunately, in our modern World, for whatever the reason, most people want a fast short cut to success. This fast track approach gave rise to all kind of impractical scenario and sometimes steer the application skills in the direction that against logic and the law of physics!

Confrontation – normally happened once or twice to an average citizen, unless you lived in a very violent area or your work or surrounding is associated with this undesirable element. If a Wing Chun practitioner is very skilful in class but lack experience in actual confrontation: he or she may freeze on the spot and all his/her learning is suddenly become useless (a great shock occurred within the body that can cause irrational behaviour)! On this occasion, your hormone chose to take the ‘fright’ response resulted in locking your rational thinking and immobilised you on the spot. It is very peculiar that you cannot foresee which response your body will take until it happens! However, no martial artist wish to gamble this hormone response when it count the most; especially between life and death! If your upbringing is already in that violent environment, your body reflex response is likely to be in a ‘fight’ mode when you meet a confrontation. Alternatively, if you have a very strong personality or a fight for justice urge; you are also likely to be in a ‘fight’ mode when under stress. If you are a ‘book worm’/’geek’/’nerd’ / timid or generally weak, through no fault of your own, then your body response when under stress is likely to be in a fright/flight mode.

As you can see, that knowledge alone is not enough: you will need stressful experiences inorder to have full control of your hormone, so not to fall into a ‘fright/flight/fight’ response(which can immoblise you or put you in a state of uncontrollable rage!). Stage fright can occur to anyone especially to those who has to perform in front of the public for the first time or speak or present a particular subject to a massive audience. Your breathing will be rapid, heart beat goes up, mouth dry and all these are very similar reaction when you are confronting an aggressive attacker. Now, you see why all martial artists need to perform to the public occasionally; in the hope that he or she can control the element of fear! With frequent demonstrations, the practitioner becomes less fearful and gain confidence in dealing with stress. When you are accustom to high stress, if an unforeseen confrontation happens, your body hormones will not be needed; instead your Wing Chun mind set will flow out naturally and easily resolve such confrontation. Trusting your own art and digest the indepth knowledge given to you, can boost up your courage and confidence immensly.

If your body chose the ‘fight’ mode hormones, you would temporarily lost rational thinking for less than a minute or so. During this time, you might not see the person in front of you but instead the colour RED that filled up your entire vision and the rage to murder your attacker escalates! And you would not feel any pain at all during this time, even though your attacker had landed couple of heavy blows to your head. You would fought on ferociously and relentlessly until the fight had ended! Although the duration last less than 30 seconds, but felt like eternity! This happend to me about 40 years ago when I was 13 and a 15 years old senior tried to bully me in front of his mates in our school play ground and I had no martial arts knowledge whatsoever at the time. Just pure primal response. As a result, I fought like a vicious animal, beating him very badly whilst received a lot of injuries (he was worse than me though, my friends told me afterward). In the end, he got expelled and I stayed. Never see him again. The ‘beast’ that I let it out for 30 seconds all those years ago, was horrible and that person is NOT me! Now a day, I will try to resolve any problem as amicably as possible and avoid unnecessary confrontation. However, if I have no choice but to deal with it, my action/retailiation would be based on knowledge, skills, combat readiness, concentration, courage and a full trust of my art. In short, control the beast within.

In conclusion, drills give you the way to learn accurately on all the techniques and preparing you for application, but do not rely on them completely in fast moving application scenario (i.e., need more ingredient to be added to the mix) and don’t be complacent.

Application give you a fine degree of accuracy, promote focus and heighten concentration and remind the practitioner to invest the time to learn the skills. Short cuts can create flaw and weaknesses. Right attitudes and personality are paramount in order to have effective application all round. Application do lacks the fluidity of each action unless the practitioner regconised such pitfall and make amend accordingly. Application on its own is more or less pattern based, must need the practitioner’s input to make it work effectively! Usually, it does not have that animosity towards your training partner and this differ from confrontation.

Confrontation is real, best to avoid it at all times if possible. If not, ensure you are combat ready (i.e. in a proper on guard stance), swith on your total focus and heighten the will to fight where courage is needed here. Too many confrontations can ruined your friendly character(but NOT public demonstration, which can boost up your confidence and have more friends) and you may loose a lot of your friends. Be warned. Everything in moderation and good balance.

As a good Wing Chun Practitioner, be aware the differences on drills, application and confrontation and try to improve each category the best you can. Also, they are related to one another according to the practitioner’s experiences. * Learn from Experience *. Good training.