The REAL Reason Wing Chun Doesn't Work 

this video is so awesome izzo, you speak out what i have been thinking for years now! as long as you dont go sparring and glove up you have nice theorie, as long as you dont do weights to support your style you are going to be a weaker version than you could be, i have an entire playlist where i comment my sparring from hunggar kungfu vs. my instructor and i might even film a reaction to your video because i think people in tma NEED TO HEAR THIS! thank you🇨🇭💪🏻

In my day "Kung Fu" meant "Hard Work".

That's Judd Reid... He's a kyokushin legend. Fought 100 people straight. He is a monster of a fighter.

I think izzo touched on something very important. He used to invite other styles into his school. How many bad guys use wing chun. We have to prepare for people who are drunk skilled and high on drugs who are doing bad things. We have to train like a beast. Thanks izzo.

Wing chun works great for me, its foundation for my fighting style, I've literally been bacc'ed up against a wall or group of people during my bouncing day's where my wing chun "punch' pushed from the elbows was the only thing that worked, very effective to be honest, not too many styles that I know where I can fire off like in a closed limited space (phone booth analogy), that's why I love Wing chun, the people that know, know. Outside of MMA or Jujuitsu, I feel real comfortable up close to people where they would get nervous when I "cross the bridge", my two cents

Wing Chun was never my first art, but it was the first one I stuck with and the first art I did any sparring in. I recognize my fighting abilities are an anomaly though but if someone knows how to make a fighter out of a wing chun guy then it can be your first art, but the school has to be interested in making fighters, not chi sao champs and energy projectors.

Fighting Wing Chun is rare. And when it was popularized it was simplified. You are absolutely correct in the conditioning aspect. I actually don't see a lot of practioners with powerful power generation from their footwork. Historically in Southern China at the time of the Invention of the Martial Art of Wing Chun, everyone knew balance because they had core muscles, sea legs from rowing & standing boats all the time. Most people were manual laborers. Yep going hard full force training. mentality has left the culture. Also due to movies and incomplete training, the application of Soft Yin Power has been exaggerated. Thank you for your authencity and service to the Martial arts World.

One of the reasons I really respect guys like Adam Williss is he is a proponent of bare knuckle Wing Chun sparring. No real pressure testing = the second you get a punch in the face you and your Wing Chun will collapse.

I 100% agree that learning boxing or grappling first is the most beneficial way to get the most applicable skills for fighting from Wing Chun. Better yet, having mma training and sparring would be superior experience for getting something applicable out of Wing Chun. In boxing and grappling you are attacking, controlling, and defending the center line and central line but it's not brought to your attention. Learning center line theory and focusing on it brought my boxing and grappling to another level. It's the goal everytime I do any kind of sparring now. Although I don't do boxing sparring anymore because I know what it feels like to be punched in the face and body repeatedly and I'd rather not have to do that unless it's absolutely necessary. Grappling on the other hand is very fun to me and I enjoy doing it. Although I have not done anything in over a year I will be getting back into it when I get adjusted to a new state that I have recently moved to.

100% agree with your point Dominic. Don't forget the psychological benefits you get from the physical conditioning. Conditioning exercises puts you in a temporary state of pain/discomfort and builds that mental toughness you need in stressful situations like fights.

You are absolutely right in everything you are saying. This is fighting science that you are teaching. I know a little wing chun (the fight effective components) and I know how to box. I learned wing chun to beat boxers. And it is superior when I use it, because I'm fighting from a boxer's mindset. (Fought in the GG). I defeated very good boxers that way. because boxers, as with most fighting, play tit for tat. But with the styles I've learned for street fighting, silat, pak qua, wing chun, they are designed to redirect energy instead of evading shielding. And with those techniques it's not tit for tat. You attack/defend, as opposed to choosing to use either or. Wing Chun with foot work and proper angling and twisting of the core and feet will make each strike, block, parry, and trap powerful.

Its so refreshing to see a down-to-earth wing chun guy. As he says, you need to condition yourself and pressure test your techniques live. If your school does not spar you will never be able to pull off any move.

Gotta agree with you completely when I was doing wing chun I had no pressure testing at all and then started sparring with my friends in my mate’s gym and each of us know different martial arts and only really learnt to apply wing chun properly after training with them. I also say wing chun does work but you have to push it to its limits

Agreed! most WC or WT practitioners don't spend enough time dealing with real confrontation or real resistance. Mostly because it takes several years to develop soft energy and correct feeling/technique. But I believe once a student has that, they should be out there testing it in all settings. I am lucky to have many friends that train in different martial arts or combat sports, so I get to pressure test a lot. But I would not make that a priority because it'll just stiffen and make you less effective. I think its the same in all martial arts. Its easy to go down the rabbit holes and get tunnel vision because we all want to become better and more knowledgeable. Its necessary for a certain amount of time in order to develop good fundamentals etc. For instance, I love boxing, wrestling and jiujitsu. I like to think I am pretty decent at all of them, but I am not interested in being anything more than technically and fundamentally sound. Because I can work with fusing or mixing while still staying focused on simplicity and allowing it to be an unconscious effort. The other importance is physical conditioning as you mentioned. Its one thing to win a single exchange and another to be able to do it for a long period of time. All martial arts are awesome. Keep training and everyone continue to spread the martial arts. God bless!

I agree with you in old traditional martial arts you must learn basic striking and grappling before doing styles of martial arts but that was lost in time people just went into style.

It's funny we have a very similar experience. I grew up near you and wrestled for years, through highschool, and getting my rotator cuff muscles (all four full thickness and lost my shot at getting a scholarship). I ended up going to a Division 1 school and became friends with a group of guys we go trained with me in their off season which made everything I learned from my coach (Olympic team alternate behind freestyle silver medalist who beat him 3 out of 5 matches by 1 or 2 points. I have also been lifting at an elite level for years. I had some shotokan karate which I quit after a couple years where I had already advanced to the point of almost being a 13 year old black belt only to switch schools to the student who left his school on bad terms. At the time he was in his mid to late 20s and made all of us glove up and spar. The students were 13-18. He adjusted to each of our levels and never hurt us but did just enough to stay slightly ahead of each guy. It was eye opening. I quit, which I am ashamed to admit, because I was getting hit in the face (,he never hurt me but exhausted me and showed me that I was helpless despite being pretty tough for my age and size at the time (I was probably all of 90 pounds and 4'10". Anyways, after college I was having trouble finding people to wrestle other than going back to my highschool on the weekends when I wasn't working and wrestling the heavier guys (at this point I was 22 5'8, 205, with a raw 605 conventional deadlift (people were all equipped in the mid 90s and gear was getting good but nothing like the multiply scene that I got into around 1999 when Louie Simmons had a column in powerlifting usa , an unequipped 585 powerlifting style low bar, wide stance (think Ed Coan style) squat with just a cheap bodybuilding belt and neoprene knee sleeves and I hit a triple with 425 with a pause at chest level before each rep (I was misguided in those days and used a wide, elbows flared Kazmaier style press. I did not take a 1 rep max fearing injury due to aching shoulders yet I was doing heavy triples using all pec and front delts and wondering why shoulder problems would continue to plague me. The guys in highschool I was wrestling who were bigger were fat, out of shape heavyweights who were wrestling to do something after football season. In other words, I was always used to competing at 152-167 pounds. The heavyweights were not NCAA material, they weren't nearly as strong, fast or skilled as I was and were in worse cardiovascular condition than I was. I wanted to work with the 135-160 pound wrestlers the team sent to State because they were very strong on the mat, fast as and in great condition. Oh well. I went to law school 1 year later and became friends with this super tall lanky kid who was a great basketball and baseball player. He never told me he trained. My old highschool buddy from wrestling (great lifter and tough guy but a dog shit wrestler because he didn't care). He was however, very competitive in sport point fighting Karate and won a gold medal at state in shotokan, then went to Israel because the Jewish athletes have some sort of Junior Olympics called the Macabi Games. He won 2 gold medals as a teenager in Karate. He also boxed at a gym in Chicago called Windy City and competed in the golden gloves a couple of times and did pretty well. This guy mentioned that this kid in my law school who was skinny but a great natural athlete was a killer. He mentioned my friend by name and I thought he was kidding. Hd said that he was on his Karate team but trained Kung Fu at some school with a strange name. My reaction was are you kidding me. He said that's what I thought until he showed me some of his shit and it was bad ass. He gets real close and the next thing you know he jamming your arms, hurting your forearms with these hard blocks and slaps while, fists, elbows, eye gouges and oblique kickz are banging into your knees and shins, plus the whole time he's jarring you hard grabbing your wrists pulling you into the strikes that overwhelm you. That's it. I had to find out what he did. I called him immediately a d asked him what he did a d be said karate. I said no the other stuff. He said it' s a short fisted close quarters style of kung Fu from Hong Kong. He said we could find an empty study room in the school library and he would show me. I said great and we met at 7:30 am the next day before our first class. So I show up, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I said ok, talk to me, what is this stuff maybe you can explain it and then teach me some stuff. His response was it's better if I just show you. I looked at him thinking am I going to stand up and just get blasted while I stand there without having any idea what he's going to do. He could see the wheels turning and said don't worry I am not going to hit you face, injure you or knock the wind out of you but I want you to experience it. We stood up and I said what now. He said do what ever you want. Ok. I started throwing low speed, weak punches but for most untrained people they would have landed. The next thing I know is my forearm is numb, from a hard block, I am yanked off balance, have been punched, although he had great control and was using speed as far as I was concerned but pulling his punches so they were stopping a cm before impact and quickly morphing into another technique. After a couple of seconds my arms were crossed and he held one hand that slapped and jammed my arms into my body, and was chain trapping, pushing me offbalsnce hitting me and yanking me forward into punches, elbows, knees and chops. Ok what the hell just happened to me in the last 5 seconds. I was mesmerized and had to learn this. I said what the hell is that I must start training. He said it's Wing Chun, ever heard of Yip Man, Wong shun Leung ok Bruce Lee (then it clicked and I was wondering why Bruce Lee moved on so quickly. Two days later I walked in this dingy gym with hard wood floors, some Matt's, 3 wooden dummies, wall bags of varying hardness, a heavy bag and a bunch of shop machines in the back room where the sifu built dummies. The place stunk like strange spices ,(it was Jow and it stunk). The instructor had crazy eyes, crazy black hair, was very stocky but had a gut. He welcomed me, smiled and said he was closed but in could come in and look around. I said well I would like to sign up right away. he said well I would love to have you but we have to make sure we are good for each other. You are not a convict right, no sir, good because a lot of cops and Feds train here. You aren't a psycho because if you are you probably won't be into what we do here, no sir. Well ok then I am ’____________. My name is Tom and it's nice to o meet you. When I went to shake his hand, he yanked me forward, kneed my thigh (dead leg,slapped my nuts and punched me fast but lightly in the face). I was speechless He started laughing and said I just wanted to make sure you are not a psycho . Well I started training there and we tried out stuff with fairly hard training. Unfortunately after a few years there were very few students and a couple guys who wantef to practice chi sao exclusively and work on Siu Lim Tao Chum kil and Biu Jee the whole time took all the students who had never wrestled , boxed, fought, played football, lifted weights (the same guys who were always claiming we used too much muscle left). Our sifu needed to make a living so he abandoned his training style and turned everything into chi Sao, don chi Sao, sticky legs,forms, knives, staff and wooden dummy. Remember Emin Boztepe and William Chung's playground fight? That's what Wing Chun looks like when those lineage obsessed, narrow minded cultists play patty cake all day and talk about their chi

This is exactly what I always believed. If a wing chun practitioner was to apply the same amount of effort into conditioning as a top level muay thai fighter, they would be very successful without a doubt.

Great video bro, I really learned some things.

It works....... You just have to test it outside of your comfort zone..... just like any other art....

Spot on!!! That's absolutely correct! I've trained for 27 years in several arts and blend systems ( Karate, Jujitsu, Akido, Kali) and instruct in them as well. I recently embarked on my wing chun journey, and my Sifu has made clear that we do not do traditional wing chun. The "stock" of wing chun good. I like the forms and Mook Jong training for therapy and hand and eye coordination, but my Sifu also has a background in isshin-ryu, Muay Thai, and a few other arts. He pulls from all that he studied and incorporates them in his wing chun. We do body conditioning, sparing and pressure testing. Bottom line is wing chun has had to evolve in order to keep up with the fighting styles of today. I'm of the Lyte Burly mindset. Apply everything! Peace and blessings 🙏🏾

Everything in what you talked about makes total sense 👌 💯

I train in Wing Chun in the UK. I was made to spar from day one. We also train at physical conditioning, strength, speed and flexibility. I always find it weird when people say there is no pressure testing in Wing Chun because it's not been my experience.

I agree with a lot of the points made for main stream wing-chun. The traditional teaching methods do not hold up for combat sport like environments. Also for self defense some training methods do not hold up. But if you understand the dynamics of sparring and self defense it is not that hard to create drills that will make you ready for combat. For example the WSL-lineage school run by ernie barrios is taking steps in that direction. I have trained in wing-chun for 14years in the WSL method and have seen many practitioners of 5+ years that have no idea how to properly apply the techniques in sparring. The problem is that learning wing-chun is often about knowing every technique and completing the system, not raising your fighting ability. That also inclused being fit and working out. I live in a big city in the netherlands, which is still relatively small. There are tons of martial arts gyms here which makes it impossible to do your own thing without challenges. 10years ago, often boxers used to come in and challenge my teacher. het would humble them since he's very good at wing-chun. He was raised for it, since the age of 6 he started his training and after highschool he trained full time. Some guys that were in the core group even competed in a free fight challenge by a new kickboxing school. There's a school in australia that trains in the same lineage and they often have stories about testing their anti grappling against gracies bjj practitioners. But I was not there to verify of course. I now started training in kickboxing to learn from their ways to later improve my wing-chun. But unfortunately most people have to much ego to do such a thing.

I agree look at Bruce he didn't complete wing Chun form yet he did believe core training ,body conditioning, weight training , ect... And yet he was incredible

Man... I love your content. Salute.

I remember watching a podcast about the fight quest wing chun episode. Leung Ting was scrabbling to find a fighter in his school to represent in the final match. Ultimately he had no one in Hong Kong and relied on Sifu Kong's students to represent. Kong was old school. He missed the old days of going to a school and challenging the people. You would always have to be in peak condition due to this threat of being challenged. He said nowadays people just call the cops. LOL

You’re 100% correct The way you train is the way you fight End of story

Total agree with your point. Wing Chun should not be someone's first martial art.

Emin Boztepe said in one of his classic videos that a Wing Tzun fighter could only stand up against a boxer if they trained as much and as hard as a boxer.

Wing Chun is not a sport where you go fight other fighters in a ring. It’s purely a self defense art and works in that context. A street fight is not self defense. It’s a crime and can easily result in jail time for the “winner “. You can’t test a self defense system by squaring off with a fighter. Scenario training and drills work well with resistance. The bad guy in a real self defense situation is not expecting much if any of a fight. There are five legal requirements to self defense and one is innocence. If you’re in a bar fight you are not innocent and most self defense systems don’t work. if your concern is beating people up in a match style fights, on the street, or in the bars, or even in the gym, then practice boxing and wrestling. If your concern is defending yourself from a surprise attack when you are going about your life in an innocent way,Wing Chun works really well. As well as any self defense system

First off I want to say thank you for making a video that doesn't pull punches. Pointing at Wing Chun and saying it's bad it's ridiculous, but your approach of pointing out the methods in which we train in the art as being the issue really helped open my eyes to why so many people dislike Wing Chun as a martial art. Other videos seem scared to call out Wing Chun instruction as a whole which you didnt do and I appreciate it. I just joined my first Wing Chun class last week. This is not only the first martial art I have ever practiced, but is also the first group class environment outside of school I have ever done. The main reason I decided on Wing Chun is not for fighting, but for learning to relax and meditate in a controlled environment, while simultaneously learning some applicable self defense. Strengthening my body, my core, and my reactions is my second goal, which is why I didn't just take up yoga or Tai chi. Finally, I love the movements, the techniques, and the philosophy behind Wing Chun. I've only been in three classes but have loved every second of each. As someone with very little knowledge of martial arts in general, this class seems like a great fit for me. My concern after watching this video now is, despite the fact that learning to fight is not my first priority, do you believe making Wing Chun my very first martial art will hurt me in the long run should I ever want to learn other martial arts? I have no intention of fighting in any competitive sense, but love Martial Arts enough that I could see myself wanting to try out other styles. Can Wing Chun only ever be used effectively as a supporting art? Or can a foundation in martial arts and self defense be made with Wing Chun, assuming I apply more of the training you specified in this video?

The problem is also that many styles have adapted to wing chun. They now know how wing chun works. Also, wing chun was developed by chinese who either had the same weight class, the differences in chinese between men and women is smaller than other nations, little fighting experience or animal kung fu styles that hardly had direct punches like western boxers

Depends on training if sport training wing Chun or just for exercise cool or self defense. But training for Sports fighting in the ring then a Wing Chun must train for that. First your improve reflex for that. Then you find out what Wing Chun tools to use. Kicking, elbows, grapping, and wresting when on the ground.

Agree 100%, but It's not wing chun, it's the way people train. Majority of people who take up a martial art do it because they want a discipline, a mindset and maybe a link to an esoteric past. The majority of commercial wing chun schools adhere to this because if you hurt your student you lose money. However if you want to use wing chun then you are going to get hurt and need to realise that you need to train hard be prepared to to get hit. But this is the reason so many "traditional" martial arts don't work in this day and age - title could say - karate, taekwondo, tai chi, chow gar, lau gar etc. These were pressure tested arts that have been handed down to a world where we live in age of comfort, where many do not need to fight. Don't blame the art blame the culture!

Glad someone finally said it. I came from a boxing and muay thai background when I started wing chun. None of the other people in that gym can train with any intensity. My warm up absolutely wrecked them the one time I was asked to get everyone warmed up.

Well done. Agree with everything said.

I have thought a lot about this. You are right. I am going back to the gym.

I remember watching an interview with the late! Leo Fong and he more less articulated the very same thing. And I started to understand how things worked in my Five Ancestors Fist Kung Fu training and Learning Sanda. I understood when I did more sparring and I discovered what you can really pull off! Plus I remember attending a certain Kung Fu school and they! will remain nameless, myself and two of my Kung Fu brothers! Was speaking to the so called professional instructor!(🤣) His exact words were when asked regarding sparring? Quote:"what about sparring do you do sparring?" Assistant Instructor:"We don't do sparring here." Now if anyone wants to attend a Kung Fu or any Martial Arts Organisation/Club? And if any so-called Master provides you with that answer? My answer would be "Thanks for letting me know about your club Etiquettes, all the best to you." Or plain and simple See you Fu**ing later.🤣🤣

Excellent information

I have a Wing Chun background but Izzo's criticisms are right and I ended up good at chi sau but unsure of how I would handle myself in a real life. So I ended up filling the gaps with cross-training in Muay Thai and BJJ. I have a deeper appreciation of Wing Chun's limits now.

Dominick here speaking the Truth like always.

I used to watch h Keysi Fighting Method on RU-vid and liked the way the way they used elbows to protect the skull. Learn from various styles, and don't get caught up in lineage, GM Whoever or anything else unless you want to to trace it back to who created the style. I've learned a lot from the late Carl Cestari's RU-vid channel and Urban Combatives Netherlands about surviving a real threat. I lost a first cousin to a multiple stabbing incident 131 times and that propelled me to really seek what works and what does not.

Thanks IZZO!!!!

This was genuinely insightful in broadly understanding the difference between Wing Chun and other more successfully applied martial arts. If you accept that Wing Chun have great theory for establishing the basics of body mechanics as a good leaping off point then it may be useful in that extent. But to grow as a fighter, you'd have to move onto something else with better core conditioning. Great info.

Conditioning is super important. And your condition is largely dictated by who you are as a person. Age, size, sex, all things a lot of martial arts teachers try to say shouldn't affect how well you can fight.

Dai Sifu Emin has been saying this for years. You look at his conditioning in his prime. Fucking SCARY. Same with his student maestro Michael Griesel, former German national middleweight boxing champion and bodybuilder. SCARY. POWERFUL And FLEXIBLE too. Sifu Fernandez too.

I came from a kickboxing background. I trained WC back in the 90s with a guy who had been a pro kickboxer and world champion lei tai fighter. He wouldn’t train anyone in WC that didn’t already have a blackbelt or full contact background in some other system. He said he wanted you to already be able to defend yourself.

I've just picked up wing Chun and I've been prepping myself and working on cardio as well as weights and building up my core. its refreshing to hear that wing Chun works as long as your conditioning for realistic matches. thank you for the advice

Well said! I agree 100%!!!

I remember my Sifu in Greece (Master Chris Vafiadis, William Cheung lineage) asking us newbies this question during training: A karateka fights a Tae Kwo Do guy, string hand versus strong feet. Who is going to win? we were all thinking for a minute, and eventually some said the karateka, and others the Tae Kwo Do guy. Eventually Sifu said: "the correct answer is, the smartest one" . Wing Chun, or any other martial art, are applicable. What matters is the person who uses it and his/her experience. Likewise, a boxer who hasn't been practicing for street fight, will probably be in a difficult position if facing a skilled /experienced street fighter. My point, you are absolutely correct sir, and thank you for the amazing video. My respect from Greece. Amitoufo ! :)

Very interesting perspective and one I’m glad I found before Ive gone even deeper into WC….. I definitely respect its’ tools as genius and like you said refining a strong athletic and sparring background.

😏I've been yelled at many times before for saying this but... 🤪The easiest way to learn is through pain. You correct your mistakes real fast. 🤘✨ 🤣🤣🤣

As Mark Rippetoe likes to say, being strong makes you harder to kill. That said it has to be well thought out. General strength is great but some things get in the way. A deadlift and squats will make you a beast. My favourite is shoulder presses but it has ruined my wing chun due to residual tension in my traps. After three minutes of chi sau they are fried. There’s trade offs. On the subject of softness it’s a bad word and doesn’t really convey much. How do you get better at deadlifts? You could keep adding weight and push yourself until you break or, you could increase frequency of training lift light weight and practise the form. More than that you will lift with a introspective mindset looking to improve mind muscle connection so that you remove inefficiencies and gain more power when the pressure is added. Try deadlifts beyond the 300lb range. You can do SLT hard push those tendons, you can do it ‘Soft, to improve mind body connection. The soft hard dichotomy is a disease in the martial arts. Wing chun is grad school.

Can You comment anything about Ala Orr Wing Chun, I personality love You both; the way You put things traditionally in practice?

Mahalo for your commentaries, Sifu Izzo. I enjoy how you say it like it is. I'm 60 years old now and enjoy teaching JKD/Wing Chun. It's helping me age gracefully. I started when I was 9 years old but it wasn't until I was 12 years old when I really started getting consistent training from Jesse Glover. Imagine this, I'm a small Chinese kid around 4'-6" if that and probably not even 70lbs wet! LOL. Jesse was around 5'-10" or so, probably 240 lbs and within 3 months of starting to train me, started hitting me. Oh man, they hurt, knocked the wind out of me and when he slapped my chest during chi sau, it would be on fire to the touch. He told me that when he used to train with Bruce, Bruce would pinch and Jesse's chest would be full of red welts. Anyway, he told me he was conditioning me to take a punch and after awhile, I could continue on with training while getting hit. I thought that was pretty cool and I was actually having fun. Can I take a punch these days? I don't even want to try, LOL. Although, when my retired training partner is in town, we will get together and hit each other a bit still and fortunately, have good laughs about it. Also, as Jesse taught me his version of Chi Sau, his arms were heavy huge oaks to my spindly branches but he got me strong within a few months. After college, I have trained the rest of my life with Sifu Taky Kimura and that style was approached softer. We'd still hit but not as hard during regular lessons. But, there was another separate group though where we did gear up and go at it more with our other sifu Roy Hollingsworth who was of many things, former SAS. Like you, he didn't mince words. Those were fun times! I will say I am guilty of not hitting hard with my students these days as most I have are there more for exercise and conditioning rather than the actual fighting art of it. And, like me, we're an older bunch of folks these days. I also love how you talk about core and hips. So essential for force, power, balance, energy, focused delivery, straight spine, moving energy to and from the ground. Keep up the great critiques!

I love it man, no one has said it better 👏

you talk a lot of sense .. love your post from uk shotokan oss

This is among top 5 Izzo videos, one of top WC vids on youtube

Crazy thing, I tought myself how to actually fight by shadow boxing and that's cause I already knew how fights worked, then apply it in actually sparing and finding those weakness and tuning them out. I think any martial art is good, but without a stress test, you'll never know and your style of martial will be like pointing and empty gun. All that flash and no bang.

Absolutely on point.. strength and conditioning should be the absolute fundamentals of any martial art.. technique will look after its self if you have strength and conditioning

I agree 100 %... Nevermind the lineage, this is common sense... I was yellow first half year from the bruises earned in training at my school, especially my torzo... Think it is normal at real WSL schools... I agree about the core training, but not with weight lifting... I came to ving tsun from other sports, and i find myself so stiff because of the western kind of training including weight lifting... Tonus of my muscles didn't allow me to produce speed, and in the end power, it was more like pushing than punching... Nevermind that, i would like to see more ving tsun teachers like you, same as my sifu, real fighters... Keep up the good work, greatings from Croatia!

The "softness" of Tai chi and wing chun absolutely works and works well, even against gorillas, but it's a hard earned skill set, only earned via realistic conditioning and training against actual gorillas, which mirrors more incidentally the environment in which these styles were developed under in the first place, before they got culturally diluted and overly mystified.

Wing Chun does not work in regulated sanctioned ring fighting. When unregulated in Street fighting or personal combat training is where Wing Chun can thrive. Being able to zero in on soft tissue targets such as eyes, throat, nose, and groin is the sweet spot of being Chun effectiveness. The important component of physical fitness cannot be overstated. Being able to pivot, shift and shuffle your feet without doubling your heart rate or twisting your knees is essential. Physical fitness is also paramount in being able to drive your hips which connects the power and precision needed in all upper body movements which are generated from lower body movements.

My opinion is that almost all traditional Japanese and Chinees martial artists tell you exactly what the problem is the moment they get out of the ring, cage when the first take on a boxer, kick boxer, MMA fighter. "I couldn't get him off of me." There is a fundamental inability to understand and control range. All styles fight/spar others in their style. Those styles have a preferred range and both fighters agree to fight at that range. It would be like if boxing styles, of which there are many, only fought others in that style. Outboxers only fought other outboxers. Infighters only fought other infighters. There would be absolutely no need to understand range and how to manage range.

You spoke a lot about "core control", but Wing Chun is the only art where I was taught to NOT use my hip and shoulders rotation to strike. I was taught to fight stiff as a board, arm punch, be 100% reactive, and rely that my opponent will throw a over committed big strike, and never use feints and combos. If these are the concepts of the art, it is just wrong.

Very good video.

I'm not a Wing Chun practitioner, though I've studied it academically with books and videos and learned Sil Lim Tau that way. My main art is Shotokan. I'm Izzo's age and trained Shotokan since age 7. One thing I can say about the concepts of Wing Chun is that they improved my understanding of my own art, especially since karate is basically Okinawan wrestling mixed with southern Chinese arts like Crane, Monk Fist, etc. Since Wing Chun is also southern Chinese it makes sense that it's concepts would help with understanding related arts. With the strides forward that the karate community has made over the last 20-30 years with back-engineering the applications of the art, such as Iain Abernethy, Les Bubka, John Titchen, etc, one can really see the relationship. Look up Iain's videos on applications for Tekki/Naihanchi kata as an example. Karate wasn't meant to be long to medium range striking as it became when it went from Okinawa to Japan. It was meant to be close range/clinch range stand up grappling and throws with strikes to finish. I'm glad I started in karate, and I'm glad I was able to use Wing Chun's principles to better understand my art, while having the conditioning from old style karate, makiwara training, etc. I wish we'd done even more pressure testing when I was a kid, but being an infantry soldier and police officer in the past helped bring home that reality to me for sure.

Wing chun work if trained well under good lineage, leung ting for example ;) And however it work better on street than on ring. (Even in ring it work if used well, maybe not 100%, but it work)

I've seen the same issues and shotokan karate. Kempo karate. We need to start training for real. For instance adding real contact and stress with resistance from your partner. Great video thank you

Honest video. Cross train as much as you can with other full contact arts or just invite them down, you'll learn quickly about what you need to do.

Hey Mr Izzo. Got a question. I'm 68 years old and at one time in my life, I studied Shaolin Kempo Karate as nd would have been either an advanced white belt or first stripe yellow belt or even a blue belt, but not brown or black belt.I had too many injuries learning to be a powerlifter and was too tight attempting a reverse punch in class and pulled a ligament kinda bad because I was tight. I also have a bulging L-4-L5 disk in my lower back. Doesn't Wing Chun resemble WW2 Combatives for the kicks in that way, and wouldn't using a low low side snap kick prevent my disk from being blown in a real fight? If I'm going to kick in a fight, I wanna not injure my back further and thought kicking the assailant's knees and shins be a better alternative to trying a high spinning back kick or any high kick for that matter. Your reply is welcome.

You are right on the money, it’s the conditioning that is the missing key in a lot of martial arts styles. When these arts were created, they trained their bodies in more extreme ways. Most people training today don’t go through the process that was used in previous centuries

why did you stop uploading again i miss the vids brother hope all is well

Every single CMA guy I know that can go is physically hard. Full stop.

Same in aikido, should not be first martial art. Train heavy in conditioning and core. And in your face pressure test, which can be more mental then physical at first

Soft energy and Alavanca leverage is the same concept. Like a piece of wood used as a leverage to move the big rock. It's scientific. But people forget that for the leverage to be able to work, it requires the wood to be strong enough handle the tension, or it breaks. For the bullet proof vest be able to handle the bullet piercing through it, it requires material that can handle the force. So does wing Chun soft power and bjj alavanca

very interesting.

Excellent video. I studied wc bjj and boxing for many years they go well together especially that I’m. Not a master of any but just love to train. I’m an older bjj black belt and now back into wc. It’s great as you age lol. 👊🏼

The way you fight is the way you train...because the way you train is the way you fight

In my experience the Best Wing Chun Practicioners come from a background of another style. My Sifu was already a Fifth Degree Black Belt in ITF Taekwondo, the origional system designed for the military not the watered down ATA WTF sport TKD systems, before he ever got into Wing Chun. With that being said you have people like Wong Sheung Leung, William Cheung, Duncan Leung, even Chu Shong Tin who made Wing Chun work very effectively.

I totally agree soft energy I mean that's okay if you're trying to you know just have fun with it or whatever and you know maybe you got bad joints or something but if you're honestly going to you know learn it because you want to actually defend yourself in a fight you've got to have aggression speed power similar to what either a boxer wrestler or whatever you want to compare yourself to cuz everybody's going to be different but yeah and this coming from a guy that honestly I'm not ashamed to say that I don't like fighting like being in a fight and I want nothing to do with having to be aggressive with anybody because of the way things are in this world but if you're going to get into a fight then it's going to be exactly that it's not going to be nothing mystical it's going to be just like you said they're going to be aggressive and show forced power or as much as possible and you got to do the same

100% on point.

Great points

I train cardio body conditioning and other stuff but to many people doing movie wing chun it’s so annoying to see people doing that🤬

I like this talk more communities need to hear and examine this notably tai chi chuan.

Thanks!

But, I believe in magic and if I try hard enough I can use my chi to throw fireballs! hahaha, great advice as always! Thanks!

Saudações Izzo Wing Chun fiquei muito feliz em saber que além de mim você tem essa visão e experiencia de Wing Chun,, prático, direto e com um condiconamento fisico realmente eficaz, depois de um tempo me desvinculei do meu mestre porque so mostrava uma ideia de Wing Chun Suave, e como sempre eu estava envolvido em lutas, vi que a suavidade era uma balela (fake), a partir disso resolvi modificar meu Sistema de Wing Chun, buscando condicionamento físico, eliminando os excessos, adaptando movimentos e passos (footWork) etc... Enfim, hoje sou criticado pela comunidade tradicional do Wing Chun porque fiz adaptações que são melhores... Priorizando o contato corpo a corpo com o adversário desde cedo como faz por exemplo o Jiu JIt So; grato

Good breakdown

I think Wing Chun has mid range and even long range potential

Well said 👍

First thank you for supporting Wing Chun. You're much much valuable for the Wing Chun community from my point of view. Unfortunatеly many are not valuable. Even hurting Wing Chun too much, just by claiming it. The real reason Wing Chun does not work? Totally agree with you for everything you say. Also I really like wrestling and to come to Wing Chun by wrestling background is a blessing. Lifting weights? What? Are we even talking about that? Conditioning is the reason you win a fight. Tactics, technique, softness are really great, but they are delivered trough conditioning end of the story. If i may add one important thing that may people miss about Wing Chun not working. My point is that Wing Chun is hard. By that i mean its hard for understanding and its hard for doing. Its that hard that not everyone is really able to understand or do. Actually there are handful of people that a trained eye can see that they're doing Wing Chun in some level. Second most important thing is that with Wing Chun you actually can't compete as you mention in the video the tehnique: Fak Sao... Yes you can apply many many tehniques and tactics in MMA, UFC ect.. like Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, but you cant compete only with Wing Chun. You need all the others styles used there. Wing Chun is young in competing, maybe after 100 years it will be there, but now it isn't. That means not many good people training Wing Chun hard, because they need to train other styles hard to compete in. We get in our schools not competing people, casual people. But when Wing Chun is that hard you actually need alot of work to get somewhere... So we have our first problem. You wont get any money for doing hard training in Wing Chun, but you can get alot of money doing other styles and compete. Schools that not doing conditioning don't really understand the basics for the fight not to mention they can understand Wing Chun. And that casual people owning schools, making videos, even "fighting" and losing in most of them is total humiliation for Wing Chun. When there is no competition, everyone is doing his "own thing" and that own thing in most cases is a disaster. When Wing Chun does work everyone understand it in a second. Unfortunately for the few people that are trying hard there are hundreds who are discrediting with Wing Chun that does not work. With Respect. Sifu Boris Georgiev Chief trainer for Wing Tsung WMAA Bulgaria

You hit the nail square on the head

I left Wing Chun decades ago because of that. Steve Lee Swift spoiled it for me. I didn't look up every Wing Chun Sifu in the world, but after being at Steve's Chicago school in the early 80s with all the students he had that could actually use it...well I never found Wing Chun after that that looked like that or worked. I admit that there are plenty, but I have never found RU-vid videos showing any Wing Chun fighters who could effectively use Wing Chun without changing it like Steve, Simon Lau and Wai Po could. I admit that all his students that could use it were beyond the 3rd stage in the 18 month 3 stage wall bag process, but I still have never come across any RU-vid videos of Wing Chunners who can use it like Steve, Simon and Wai Po could, without adding boxing footwork and the boxing bobbing and weaving. Though Simon, Wai Po and Steve all hide it in Wing Chun videos of them ha ha. Well you see the real Wing Chun they use with all the palms, elbows and kicks to the chest in some of Steve's old DVDs like Mind of the Wing Chun Fighter 1 - 3 and extreme Wing Chun, but other than that I've never found that kind of Wing Chun outside of his early 1980s Chicago school. Like on fight commentary breakdowns for example it's always the guy who only knows the straight blast, can't use the traditional Wing Chun kicks palms or elbows, and doesn't know the bong sau's only a blink of the eye. Or it's someone bobbing and weaving or doing MMA, but calling it Wing Chun. I know they exist somewhere out there though.

Id like to see how butterfly swords work against other cultural rennaissance era weapon martial arts

Agree! Have done years of hard sparring in kickboxing and boxing, and now coming back to Wing Chun with totally different mindset/approach! I think Wing Chun should be also trained the way Lee Morrison trains Urban Combatives.

Spot on

This is so true and broken down realistically.

Hello, I think you are 100% right. I like martial arts but only did 1 month karate when I was a kid. Unfortunately, during almost all my years in school I suffered from violence, I was attacked by people stronger than me and even by a group of people. With time I started to do exercise and became stronger and then I managed to survive using very basic wrestling. Wrestling is great!! Kung Fu is a good martial art if you train like a Shaolin monk it is even one of the best martial arts.

I do conditing of the knuckles in freestyle wing chun using makiwara and a wing chun bag filled with sand