Cross Training

[chisauking]

dan sez: FIRST POINT - no personally i wouldn't recommend a beginner train more than one system in the first 4-6 months.

csk: Aha! So, you conceed my point, at last.


dan:Dr. Maltz explains the four stages of learning as follows:

1. Unconscious Incompetence
2. Conscious Incompetence
3. Conscious Competence
4. Unconscious Competence

As you review these four levels, you can see the progression. As a student of the martial arts, we come into the school generally thinking we know at least how to do some rudimentary skills like punching. But upon being taught the proper method of punching, which includes such considerations as balance, power generation, and angle of execution, we realize that we didn’t really know how to throw a punch.
At this time we pass from level one (Unconscious Incompetence) to level two (Conscious Incompetence). We now know that we do not know how to throw a proper punch. So we go about learning the proper mechanics of the technique. As soon as we are introduced to the technique and are able to reproduce satisfactory results in performing the method, we have passed from level two into level three (Conscious Competence). However, the technique will still not be a reliable method of self-protection that can be used in a violent encounter.

In a fight, you seldom have time to think, but must react. This means that even if you are able to do a technique and reproduce satisfactory results with the technique, it is still not a tool that can be relied upon in self-protection. In order for the technique to be reliable, you must have entered the fourth level of learning (Unconscious Competence). This is when you will experience “Conditioned Reflex” in your technique. This is when the technique “Does itself”.

It takes time and repetition in training in order to Build your kung fu into a conditioned reflex."

csk: I have no arguments with the above, but I will briefly add: In any situation, it's impossible not to 'think' at all. At the moment our opponent moves, our brain is already making 1000s of calculations in real time, on the fly. The only difference between bad and good fighters is that the good fighters can compute this 'thoughts process' very, very fast....So fast, it seems like their response has no time-lag. And this is the resaon why I'd said you must minimise the amount of information your mind has to process. A small computer program will run much faster than a complex program. Running multiple programs(multitasking) will slow this process even further.

Next time you people gwoh-sau -- if you have reach this level -- observe the 'wing chun' being used. You will actually see very little of what actually constitute wing chun. It will look like 'kick boxing. The reason for this is simple: very few practitioners can apply wing chun for real......yet people still want to add more to their repetior of techniques before they have mastered the fundamentals of wing chun.

[Dan]

NOTE: I never diagreed with that particular point I just disagreed with your other statments and method of argument

Im still not sure you have understood my point and with it the fundementals of any martial arts training. However many options you have it souldn't matter because you are not going to think about them in a fight. You seem to be saying you will think so fast you wont even notice but that for me jsut isn't true. You have to just recat instinclivly. This reaction is achived through lots of hard training, that is waht the above article is all about.

If more options complicated matters wing chun would not have so many tchniques? but more options dosen't complicate matters. the only complication comes in getting certain techniques to become a reflex?

Out of curisity who do you train under/ where do u teach? Just so i can get an idea of what school of thought you are coming from.

As for me im obviously Sifu Kwoks student

[Tom]

chisauking said:

Tom: I don't know whether it's because you can't be bothered to read my post properly or you lack comprehension skills.....

It's because I can't be bothered to read your post properly.

Mainly because it seems to be filled with thinly veiled resentment for us, and I can't be bothered to engage with you on such a petty level.

chisauking said:

To save all the BS, like me ask you and dan a simple question, and I hope you can answer in plain English. Q: Should a beginner with less than 4- 6-months experience of wing chun, before he\she has even completed SLT and the basics, before they have absorb & digested the fundamentals\princples, start several styles at the same time?

Hey, theres some more of that thinly veiled resentment I was talking about...

I believe I answered this already in my post. I said "cross training can only benefit your fighting style but you have to have the right mentality and understanding of what a fighting system actually is."

And I'm fairly sure that that is "plain English". Coming from a man who says "sunked in"...

If a beginner in Wing Chun, with less than 4 months experience can grasp the concepts of the system, then why not cross train? It's always going to come down to the individual's ability to learn. who's to say someone only learning Wing Chun for the first time doesn't have fundamental understandings of other systems?

chisauking said:

That's a silly 'umbrella' statment you'd made, tom. Wing chun training is as extrem or as passive as the practitioner want to make it. Just because your club train at a 'low' intensity level doesn't mean every other wing chun club is the same.

How is that an umbrella statement? Can cross training incorporate fitness training, or can it not?

You should come train with us and see how "Low intensity" we really are before making ridiculous, unfounded comments like that.

Training in Wing Chun, as with everything, is a case of "You get out what you put in". I'm presuming that's what you meant to say. As far as I'm aware, theres no such thing as "passive" training. Unless it involves doing your best to avoid actually doing any techniques.

And to make it clear, in plain English, we were talking about fitness training. Not Wing Chun training. Wing Chun doesn't incorporate fitness training in the way that, say, Boxing does. If you're sweating buckets you're either really out of shape or doing it wrong. Wing Chun isn't meant to be physically demanding. that's why, by your own admission, "wing chun is suitable for the old or young, super fit or out of shape."

As i said before it promotes good health, and can help with muscle development, but to the same extent that Boxing does? No chance.

You claim that your Wing Chun is better cardio exercise than running or skipping is, well, sorry to be blunt, but how the hell would you know? Are you seriously claiming your heart pumps more blood through doing Wing Chun training than it does running? Where the hell do you practice, up a mountain?

We train for two hours a night. Trying running for two hours a night and tell me that Wing Chun is better cardio exercise.

If you know anything about Wing Chun, you'll know that relaxation is absolutely key to good technique. Do you see Ip Chun sweating buckets? No, and are you gonna tell me that he didn't train to an "intense" level? The guy IS Wing Chun, living and breathing.

You're right, I didn't read all of your posts, and so I may have missed out on some important argument you made, but if your previous response was anything to go by, I'm not missing a great deal.

Once again, come train with us, then you'll at least be in a suitable position to criticise us.

[Dan]

I can feel the love and warmth this thread has generated. But having said that its useful for us all to think about stuff even if we dont all agree.

[chisauking]

dan sez: NOTE: I never diagreed with that particular point I just disagreed with your other statments and method of argument

csk: Dan, that's just me. It's my warped sense of humour, but I don't mean anything negative. Most important of all, they way I try to manipulate people's emotions allows me to gauge the calibre of the person whom I'm conversing with.

dan:Im still not sure you have understood my point and with it the fundementals of any martial arts training. However many options you have it souldn't matter because you are not going to think about them in a fight. You seem to be saying you will think so fast you wont even notice but that for me jsut isn't true. You have to just recat instinclivly. This reaction is achived through lots of hard training, that is waht the above article is all about.

csk: It's impossible to act 'instinctively' as such. Fights are unpredictable. You must have 'some' imformation before you can react. Any way, we will just have to agree to disagree on this part.

dan:If more options complicated matters wing chun would not have so many tchniques? but more options dosen't complicate matters.

csk: There are only four basic control 'tools' in wing chun: tan, bong, fook, wu. The rest are just minor variations. Off course, permutations of how you apply the four tools is limited to your imagination\experience.

dan:the only complication comes in getting certain techniques to become a reflex?

csk: If people are complicated by four tools -- and even then, I have seldom seen wing chun practitioners that can ultilise all four in gwoh-sau -- why do you propose people should learn anymore?

dan:Out of curisity who do you train under/ where do u teach? Just so i can get an idea of what school of thought you are coming from.

csk: I don't teach at the moment. I've learnt from 4 coaches(sifus), but I would rather keep them out of petty forums because I don't want to use their names to add leverage\weight in what I write. I rather people judge me solely on the content of writings. After all, I'm responsible for my own thinking, and it isn't neccesarily the thinking of my teachers.

dan:As for me im obviously Sifu Kwoks student

csk: Sam's a very nice guy. I've met him on a few occasions, and I personally feel he's one of the better wing chun practitioners in the UK.

[chisauking]

Tom.

You can't be bothered to read my shit, I definately can't be bothered to read yours.
However, I did catch the bit where you raved about YC. Great! Now I understand where you are coming from. What a contradiction in terms: one hand you are talking about fitness and extrem training......then you bring up YC.

carry on the good work!

[Tom]

chisauking said:

Tom.

You can't be bothered to read my shit, I definately can't be bothered to read yours.
However, I did catch the bit where you raved about YC. Great! Now I understand where you are coming from. What a contradiction in terms: one hand you are talking about fitness and extrem training......then you bring up YC.

carry on the good work!

Care to elaborate, or are you going to stick to vagueness and general insults?

I mentioned Ip Chun as a CONTRAST to extreme training. I felt I was very clear about that point. The guy is 82. what did you think I was referring to? But then you didn't bother reading it did you? In which case why even point it out?

I couldn't be bothered to read your original posts because firstly, there were pages and pages of them, and secondly, they are the product of a disordered mind.

I did like this bit though:

"csk: Dan, that's just me. It's my warped sense of humour, but I don't mean anything negative. Most important of all, they way I try to manipulate people's emotions allows me to gauge the calibre of the person whom I'm conversing with."

Of course, that was the plan all along wasn't it? Well I too gauge the calibre of the person I'm dealing with by their emotional attitude, and I've got you down as having the competitive attitude of a three year old, constantly engaging in some odd sort of "harder-than-thou" crusade to belittle as many people's opinions
in an evening as you can. I am of course basing this opinion on your conduct in the early pages of this thread, where you shot down someone for having a different opinion than you based solely on the fact that they'd been doing Wing Chun less time than you. And you claim you don't teach at the moment? I'm not surprised! Lesson one: I'm right, you're wrong. Way to go there!

Theres an internet expression for people like you: Trolls.

I'm going to say it again, come train with us, then feel free to criticise us all you want.

[Tom]

Ahh, I see. A little research yields wonders.

It would appear that our good friend "Chisauking" is only 19 years old (as opposed to 39, which he claims in his profile). Which would explain why he isn't teaching "at the moment". It would also seem this isn't the first time he's gone to a Wing Chun board and talked shite, pissing people off in the process.

I should have guessed really. any self respecting Wing Chun practitioner wouldn't go round calling themselves "Chisauking". Or using the email address "[e-mail]"

It would also seem he's a student of Gary Lam's lineage of Wing Chun.

Oh, and this is his phone number: 07836 600832

If anyone cares enough, you can read this:

www.wingchunkuen.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=126&start=30

I can see whats gone on here. You've used the anonymity of the internet to create the impression you're more knowledgeable about the subject than you actually are. Well done you, you fooled us all. Well, not really.

Once again, come train with us, then feel free to criticise us.

Or alternatively, fuck off.

[rosenrot]

Wow, thats some quality research/stalking. I always knew not to trust those Manchester types...

[chisauking]

A few carefully chosen words, and I have you guys foaming in the mouth. Ho, ho, ho, and you try to talk with me about 'thought process' and wing chun.

As always, my intentions were good, but you just didn't see it that way.

If you can't control your emotional content on a forum, what chance have you in a real fight?

You know where to find me if you want. If you stay in the wing chun scene long enough, or if you visit the vtaa in hong kong often, we will sure to meet.

until then,

see you all, girly boys

[kizz0]

chisauking said:

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

CSK: That was your original entry into this thread, insults and all I've refrained from getting really involved, but now I feel I have to get geeky and technical on you, I'm truly sorry. No mention of 4-6 months there (though if you assumed that people would keep in mind that togo said he had only 4 odd months of training in Wingchun then I guess thats fair enough...but where you pulled the 6 months from I don't know... ). Whats good about Wingchun is that it's simplicity; so I don't think you do well to talk about 'high-level comprehension', most people would understand those 'levels' of wingchun theoretically after a single lesson, it's the unconsious assimilation and subsequent application of said principles that is the difficult part, that requires time and that time period differs on various factors etc. In fact my girlfriend (who is studying psychology) tells me that there is plenty of evidence in the psychology of learning to show that learning multiple disciplines at once is fine, as long as the right amount of time is dedicated to all of them...I'm assuming, ofcourse, that this can applied to martial arts training. I mean technically speaking, whilst learning WC we all learn other systems of behaviour/action at the same time...well us students do anyway, and this does not seem to detract from our training at all...sometimes my academic studies even add to it! You could say that for example, the techniques that Derren Brown employs in the form of Auto-suggestion and NLP can be used as 'self defence' and have (according to the man himself) actually been used as such (He even mentions wingchun in the passage of the book that I'm reffering to here). Are you saying that it's too complicated for us to learn that sort of thing and wingchun as well? I personally think not, I think they will only serve to compliment each other, not matter what stage you are at, especially if you consider it all 'FIGHTING' or 'Self-Defence'...Science, for example is full of subcategories, like chemistry, physics etc, if one is dedicated enough and intelligent enough, then learning a few of those disciplines at the same time isn't that difficult, in fact understanding in one can lead to further understanding in another. Thus I would go as far to argue that other physical systems of self defence and psychological self defence, if thats what we can call it, are no more difficult than each other to learn, nor are they disparately any more complicated; this also goes for the different physical combat systems themselves. (Obviously there is a limit, but if you are really dedicated to martial arts...is 3 really asking that much of your brain? I hope not...) Wingchun is not rocket science, so if we could stop talking about 'high-level comprehension' and talk straight without alluding to our own mystical powers in 'Esoteric Quantumn mechanical Wingchun', that would also be awesome.

One of the guys who cross-trains in this society (and who is technically now a sifu under Master Kwok and one of his best students here, if not the best) trains literally 7 days a week, sometimes multiple classes and styles; and others train pretty close to that mark too. Another gripe that I have is that despite the fact you keep re-iterating about "I'm not against cross training" etc, Anyone who reads the rest of the content of your posts knows this not to be true. You clearly have contempt for MMA or at least deem it and cross training in general unnecessary, evidenced by your continuous assertion that wingchun is 'flawless' and various comments about 'happy mma training'...need I say more? But whilst you sit in your Ivory tower, the rest of us have our feet firmly rooted in reality and scientific fighting methodology, which really (perhaps ironically) IMO is what wingchun's core message is really about, aka: Occam's razor. It's a great conceptual framework/benchmark to fit any other martial art up against. It is my opinion that ONE DAY IN to wingchun training, as long as you are bright enough to grasp the rationale behind wingchun's principles you can learn any other style and take what is useful and set it atop your wingchun framework. I did that myself when I turned up here, I came to a class, sparred with some of the students here who had been doing martial arts for far less time than me and got my ass handed to me and spent about 10 seconds realising why. The rest of the time from then and now has been spent appropriating those skills for myself, sifting through my old martial arts habbits and keeping the ones that are still useful and mentally dumping the ones that are not... and also making sure that all styles that I study from now on pass particular criteria, which was well put by WSL "Direct and Savage"...Pretty easy really; Again, NOT 'quantum mechanical esoteric Wingchun'. What am I saying then? I'm saying you are the ultimate "Keyboard Warrior" and until you prove to us otherwise i will remain unconvinced that you actually have a practical clue what you're talking about. Like so many other of my comrades here, I extend an invitation for you to come and train and enlighten us in your philosophically rich kungfu. I know I perhaps got somewhat philosophical on my part here, but I'm safe in the knowledge I peer review my theory often and thus the onus is clearly on you my friend, to do the same.

[Tom]

chisauking said:

A few carefully chosen words, and I have you guys foaming in the mouth. Ho, ho, ho, and you try to talk with me about 'thought process' and wing chun.

As always, my intentions were good, but you just didn't see it that way.

If you can't control your emotional content on a forum, what chance have you in a real fight?

You know where to find me if you want. If you stay in the wing chun scene long enough, or if you visit the vtaa in hong kong often, we will sure to meet.

until then,

see you all, girly boys

Hahaha, Pwned.

[Togo]

Girly Boys ? coming from a 19 year old keyboard hardman thats really tough. Coming from such a pathetic excuse for a wing chun practitioner is even richer. I could happily sit and list pages of nsults directed at you but thats hardly the point of the forum or this thread so instead i'm just wanting to know why ?

Why talk such shit when it's clear you have very little grasp on wing chun or any other arts, let alone cross training. I'm a wing chun noob but i'm still entitled to my opinion, however i know to put it across withsome respect and to take others views into account, especially those who are more experienced than me.

Do yourself and all of us here on internet forums around the globe by trying to get yourself some form of life mate, also an apology wouldn't go a miss but thats probably not going to be happening any time soon seeing as your such a hardnut who plays by his own rules...

Good Luck With Your Training Anyhoo