Wing Chun

I teach Wing Chun empty handed fundamentals.

Wing Chun is easily the best style of kung fu for learning practical blocking and counter-striking skills for one-on-one empty-handed combat.

There’s an argument to say Tai Chi or JKD are better for this, but I’m talking about the skills acquired by the average student, not the uppermost percentile.

Personally, I believe Wing Chun is the best mainstream martial art for practical self defence altogether (from conventional threats).

There’s an argument to say that could be Judo or Boxing, and I recommend you learn these too, but they have massive limitations where Wing Chun does not.

Wing Chun is simple, it’s quick to learn, and it focuses on the most important aspects of empty-handed one-to-one combat.

This is the base style I’ll be teaching on this course. Most of the core techniques I teach here are commonly taught in Wing Chun schools around the world today, albeit often slightly differently because they tend to be not so concerned with Wu Wei, Tai Chi and JKD principles as we will be on this course.

Bruce Lee doing Pak Da on John Saxon
Bruce Lee teaching Wing Chun to Enter The Dragon co-star John Saxon in 1973.

What is Wing Chun?

Wing Chun is the best martial art for quickly learning how to block punches effectively.

We also throw punches. This gives us the ability to be more assertive. But throwing punches is also vital for defence, because you can’t stand there all day blocking punches perfectly – you’re going to get hit eventually if you don’t fire back, unless they back down after you’ve blocked the odd shot, which sometimes happens, just don’t depend on it; and if they’re brandishing a sharp or projectile weapon, there may be increased urgency to counter-attack at the first viable opportunity.

Wing Chun also helps you to deal with wrestlers, although this is more the domain of Tai Chi and Shuai Jiao.

Ip Man teaching Chi Sau to Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee as a teenager in Hong Kong, learning Wing Chun from Ip Man. In particular, they’re doing Luk Sau – the basic steering wheel pendulum version of Pun Sau (rolling hands) – the main Chi Sau (sticky hands) exercise in Ip Man’s Wing Chun for beginners to get used to the basic positions involved before advancing to freestyle rolling called Guo Sau 過手 (crossing hands) which is essentially ultralight technical sparring that needs no protective gear.

Why learn Wing Chun?

Wing Chun specialises in bareknuckle blocking and counter-striking. We can do it very effectively with our eyes shut, thanks to Sticky Hands training. Nobody blocks punches better than us, from a contact position. No other martial art comes close. If that’s not reason enough to train Wing Chun, or at least our Sticky Hands work, I should probably end here. But there’s more.

  • We can do 10 moves a second, when we’ve mastered our craft. The sticky hand reacts faster than the eye.
  • We simultaneously block & counter, like what Jack Dempsey taught in his book in 1950 based on bareknuckle boxing of olde.
  • We are masters of moves like Fook Sau, Lap Sau, Lan Sau & Gam Sau, which are very powerful in Dirty Boxing but not trained well in gloved sports.
  • We can compete with top-level Judokas at Grip Fighting, without needing to grip any clothing – we use No-Gi techniques but are just as effective defensively. We tend not to grapple offensively because the opening for striking usually appears first, but cross-training in Judo or Shuai Jiao is a great way to cover all bases.

I could go on all day about why Wing Chun rules, but this should be enough for now.

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