Cross Training

[Togo]

Hey i'm on a roll today so figured i'd come and start a new discussion. So my question to you is do you cross train ? and if so/ if not why ? By cross training i mean either incorporate wing chun with other arts, or other activities such as running, weights etc.
To start the ball rolling i'll give my 2 cents...

For me personally i agree with the concept that no art is perfect and no system is complete. A rather narrow minded view for someone with only 4 odd months wing chun experience under the belt but its a general rule i try to stick by.

I have studied Tae Kwon Do, Muay Thai, Boxing, Tukido And Some Street Fighting and from most of these i've taken some aspects and kept them. I also go out and run twice a week and do some power training with weights when i can manage it. At least once a week i will also incorporate in some basic boxing/Thai boxing training by working the bag, sit-ups, press ups, skipping etc. and althouugh most of this training goes against the principles of wing chun, i.e not using strength against strength i still feel i'm improving my level of fitness and self defense abilities, and although just now i can't use much of what i've been taught in wing chun i still feel that by incorporating my boxing punches and foot work with some of the wing chun principles, strikes and defnsive techniques as well as the wing chun kicks that i could stand a good chance of defending myself, so i was just curious if anyone else cross trains or combines wing chun with anything else, i'm sure as my wing chun skills progress i will be able to take more from this art and adapt it to the street but for now i think it would defend on the situation.

Your Thoughts Please ?

[kizz0]

Yeah I'd pretty much agree with what you've written, as would a fair few people at the lancaster uni wingchun club. A few of us have different martial arts backgrounds and train at least once a week trying to make some sort of personal synthesis out of our collective knowledge to improve our fighting skills. We also do a lot of headgear training and the theory is that from this we get to see what tends to work in something that is somewhat close to real fighting (Others can explain this better than I ). Even without the headgear some people train pretty hard and the odd bloody mouth/nose or broken fire alarm occurs xD

As for your thread (and you mentioned it briefly on here) on weights, conditioning and fitness. I agree that being super fit will help a lot and I definitely agree that being conditioned and being used to getting hit is vital. I feel the most important factor in this type of training for fighting is training the fast twitch muscle fibers and not the slow twitch endurance muscles. This is so that you are extremely explosive, I feel that is far more important than being cardiovascularly fit, but though like I said being all round super fit does help and in some contexts (like having to run away from a fight for an extended period of time) it could save your life. So yeah, Ideally train everything, but explosiveness should be the priority as I think it's a factor that bears more weight. Anyway, thats my two pennies

ps. Don't think that we are against the use of strength at all, strength is a component in fighting and an important one at that. The wingchun principal behind strength (correct me if Im wrong anyone else) is of 'ging' which is simply put "using your muscles effectively". This is a principal that can be (and often is) applied in other styles, it's by no means an exclusive right of wingchun, I just think it's stressed to the right degree in our school. I've read something along the lines recently that the third form in wingchun teaches us not just techniques but also that sometimes certain principals have to be abandoned if the situation calls for it. In the same way "Strength vs strength" (depending on what you mean by that) is not necessarily a 'no-no' in wingchun. Sometimes, for example, if you are say in trapping range and both hands are in contact, you can apply strength on one of the arms/hands to distract the opponents attention whilst you take advantage of a gap that he leaves due to lack of attention on his structure etc. Obviously, this doesn't make too much sense in boxing, since there isn't a great deal of trapping, but there is nothing wrong with mixing the two styles together, as long as you train them as a synthesis and not just standalone styles, otherwise your brain might become confused in a fight or something lol xD

Samuel Kwok has done joint seminars with carlson gracie for example, who wished to mix wingchun and bjj, Kwok is also teaching an up and coming boxer some trapping techniques...I don't remember his name, (someone else on here will) but he looks big and scary and from what I hear he has some serious strength and punches seriously hard.

[superfoot]

Ye we tend to incorporate a "cross-training" approach in our lessons as lots of us have experience in other martial arts. If somethings good you may as well use it. Today in fact im going to my first proper grappling class so i feel more comfortable if i get taken to the ground in a self-defence situation, and know how to get back up quickly. Also, the fitter you are, the better, however for most people it is a question of the time they have available for training, and how to best utilise that training by figuring out what increases your skill the most.

[Togo]

Thanks for your two pennies there mate, let me know how the grappling class goes, i've ften considered taking up a ground art such as bjj as i know things don't always go to plan and my ground work is shoddy to say the least.

a quick question which i've been wondering is : does wing chun have any ground work ? i know some styles of wing chun have "anti grappling" and some people claim that wing chun works just as well on the ground if you give it a little bit of thought, but i'm still curious. Probably a question best suited for my sifu but i thought i might as well toss it up here.

So back to the point at hand, i'm glad i'm not alone in my cross training, thanks for the insight into 'ging'...is this the same as 'fa ging' or last minute energy as my instructor puts it ? i never thought of the concept of 'ging' simply using your muscles correctly, i had the wing chun "energy" down as some sort of concept which you could only developand understand through some dedicated practice of wing chun, which i suppose is true just not in the sense i had it down as

So anyone else here cross train ?

[superfoot]

Ye the class was very good, it is of course sport orientated but as long as you realise when the eye gouges and groin shots are on you can learn a lot. Wing chun doesnt have any ground work, the point being your footwork and structure should not let your oppenent take you down, however if your footwork is not perfect like mine it is worth training, cos what happens when you do find yourself on the floor in a fight. I would suggest going to a dedicated "grappling" arts class to learn groundwork rather than from any so called 'wing chun groundwork' class as the techniques and knowledge is likely to be of a higher quality. I personally would always use strikes to defend myself and treat what grappling i will hopefully learn as 'just in case' techniques.

Ye ging is just that, just like you practice in the second section of the first form.

[rosenrot]

I've trained Aikido, Wing Chun and MMA (also fencing and archery if we're counting armed styles ). I had a go at TKD briefly but wasn't a fan partially due to the club and partly the rules of sparring.

Cross-training or the "modern" approach to martial arts, as opposed to traditional loyalty to styles, has obvious benefits in rounding your fighting ability. This should be obvious to anyone who actually appreciates fighting and contemplates the diverse scenarios of combat.

On the topic of fitness etc. I agree it is incredibly important. I agree with Kieran in that explosiveness is vital, but feel that to neglect conditioning is a grave mistake. Your explosive power runs out very fast if you haven't got good fitness to back it up. Its also worth bearing in mind adrenaline, which may make you tired before you even begin fighting and so sap your explosive power even more. Good cardio will help you stay explosive and powerful longer which is a great help.

I agree on the point Togo made about footwork. I'm not much of a boxer, but find the footwork I picked up in MMA far more useful that the Wing Chun stuff that I've seen. This may be because what I've seen is fairly static as are most of our drills.

Overall, fighting in competition or 'the street' is a combination of luck, skill (training), physical fitness/power and mental strength. The latter is important in numerous ways: seeing a violent situation arising and preventing it, having the ability to think while fighting (possibly the hardest part of combat) and pushing through pain and fatigue. The first and only time I have been in a street fight was over three years ago before I had done any training and I ended up getting my head x-rayed in hospital afterward. I had fitness on my side but that was it: I had no skill or luck and I failed in two of the mental qualities (I shouldn't have provoked the fight and couldn't think during it) .

My point here is that skill, regardless of how well-rounded you are, isn't everything unless its backed up by other contingents. That said by being a well-rounded fighter you're giving yourself the best chance you can, as long as you've trained hard (plenty of contact sparring and to the point of being very fatigued) and have gathered mental strength that sort of conditioning provides. This is certainly what I lacked in the fight mentioned above.

[bigtouch]

ive noticed ppl sayin that in fights the adrenalin down can reduce your combat effectiveness but ive always found that the effect of adrenaline lasts for much longer than any fight ive been in.
could just be me tho haha

[Dan]

yeah adrenalin is interesting it will make you considerably stronger, and make you last longer (as a general rule) but it can cause confusion and memory loss. However if you have lots of adrenalin in your body you will feel very little pain (until it wears off). This obviously seems good but you have to remember the person/persons you are fighting will probably be pumped full of adrenalin too.

[chisauking]

Wing chun's concept is flawless....it's only the limitation of the practitioner that makes the style flawed.

If you are a beginer, it's best to focus your attention to one style only. Comprehension of the wing chun princples\concepts is vital for the later development of this fantastic system. Trying to learn several different styles at once is akin to trying to eat Chinese, Indian, English, Italian, etc., food at once: You would not be able to digest\absorb all the food, and all the individual taste would be lost.

Does it mean you shouldn't study different arts? No, but true comprehension of ONE art should be attained first.

As the old saying goes: jack-a55 of all trades, master of none.

Or, you can call it chopsuey wing chun: a bit of this, a bit of that

[Togo]

I have to disagree with you there to a certain extent chisauking, i agree that in theory wing chun is flawless, but that is only in theory. If you think about it, everything and anything is plausable "in theory". Yes it also down to the faults of the practitioner to an extent, but if something doesn't work then it doesn't work i'm afraid, no matter how much you may want it to or try to make it. Please bear in mind i'm still not to great at wing chun and have a LOT to learn, but i'm fully aware that wing chun like any martial art is dependant on making the style work for you as opposed to hoping it'll be alright on the night.

Also i disagree with yourr views on cross training, i liked the analogy about the variations of food and i feel this is true to an extent, i think it is good to have a base art from which to work on, but having other things under your belt is no disadvantage, trying to master different arts at once would be pointless and practically impossible, but it's always nice to have some other tools along with you. For instance, from what i can gather wing chuns ground work is quite limited, and although the theory or concepts of the wing chun principles are meant to prevent you going to the ground, things rarely go to plan in a fight. I know i'm still very new to the style but i'm smart enough to know that whist i'm still learning, my wing chun isn't going to stop a tackle or w/e takedown move hurled at me so it's nice to have a plan b. and unless after a few years in wing chun i'm satisfied with the concepts etc. and feel they would work then i'm also going to take up some bjj or something to improve my ground game.

peace

[chisauking]

It goes to show you don't even understand basic wing chun concepts.........and here you are trying to tell practitioners the weakness of wing chun.
Just to give you a clue, wing chun is a conceptual system...it's not about a technique to counter another technique. If that were to be the case, you would learn a lifetime of techniques and still not finish since the permutations of techniques of combat is endless.

But of course, you would understand this if you only focus on ONE system instead of being the jack

happy MMA training (maybe you should include water-ground fighting since the chance of a fight starting in a pub is very high)

[bigtouch]

not everything is plausible in theory either

also i dont see the problem in mastering more than 1 different art at a time

[Togo]

Well i could say "In theory if i run fast enough off a cliff flapping my arms i should potentially be able to fly..." it "could" work in "theory".

I wasn't trying to tell anyone the weakness's of wing chun, only what i've observed so far for myself and what someone else has told me on this site, so far i've not been shown any ground game in training and after asking someone was kind enough to tell me that wing chun doesn't really have a ground game, and this was from someone who i take to be a good bit more experienced than me.

The problem with mastering more than one art at a time is that it's pretty difficult to do, and if your truly trying to master something then you'd normally focus on that one thing fully, then there's also the concept of time allocation, there's only 24 hours in a day so your limited to how much training you can do at any given time.

sorry if i've rocked the boat a bit here, i'm just curious and still inexperienced with the style.

[chisauking]

Togo: I'm just pulling your 'plonker'!

Whatever 'rocks' your boat, buddy.

That's the other requirment of wing chun: a strong mind.

[rosenrot]

To Togo: you have the right attitude. Cross-training is the way forward, anyone who disagrees is very short sighted. Plus of course training in BJJ (or any intense style) is great for your fitness and has a fun competitive edge which is missing from WC (for obvious reasons).