It was good to see James giving an expert opinion of Wing Chun’s chain/running punch, and relating this back to old school boxing which also used “milling.” The discussion was inspired by this informative YouTuber who rightfully shits on Wing Chun, in a respectful bowel movement:

I began training in Wing Chun in the early 1980s, doing boxing and wrestling with my father and his friends before that. The old guys boxed and wrestled in the Great Depression, usually in illegal bare-knuckle matches.

When the Bruce Lee craze hit I did Tae Kwon Do for the kicking, and because, in my deluded teenage hood, I thought that it was cool. Fortunately, the mainland Chinese Wing Chun guy I trained under a bit later, had also done other martial arts before settling on Wing Chun to teach. His mate, a Thai, was a reasonable Muay Thai boxer, so all of this was thrown together. Then, on Friday and Saturday nights, club members did bouncing at a tough pub, so one learnt whether something worked or not.

I had since a kid, been with my father when he engaged in pub fights, mainly against long-haired 1960s uni/hippy types over the Vietnam War. Of course, even in this shithole, one would be gunned down today, but back then there was not even a knife to be seen. I had my first fight against some weak uni cuոt when I was about 11 or 12 years old, and held him off long enough for the old man to work his way to choking him out.

During the Wing Chun training time, I had a one-on-one private sparring with a Wing Chun Grandmaster, in private. I was into full-on powerlifting as well as martial arts, coming in at 303 lbs, 600 lbs squat etc. The match was a draw, no-one seemed to be able to get into anyone. However, I probably was holding back out of youthful respect, and may have been able to flatten the little guy if I had lost my temper, or if this was serious shit. About that time some Wing Chun masters did get taken down, literally:

Wow, an early ground ‘n’ pound. This incident showed that Wing Chun alone was weak, and one needed skill in ground fighting, as well as plenty of muscle power. Wing Chuners are generally weak. Yet, the status quo opposed all of that, still insisting that the fight is over once it goes to the ground, so ground fighting is not in the system. Sure, a ground fight is not one’s first preference given all the sharp pointy shit on the ground, but too bad if shit does happen and you slip on someone’s blood.

Let’s not even talk about mystical chi bullshit. Fuck chi with a mystical chilli.

So, my opinion from being in the scene is that the critics of Wing Chun are largely right. The conventional Chinese kung fu approach to fighting will get you killed on the street. The front-on pigeon-toed training stance is taken by too many ill-trained practitioners as a fighting stance, which is ridiculous, yet you would be amazed at how many books advocate just that. It shows the lack of training and eager commercialism of many. And, there is not much these guys could do against these monsters:

The running punch is supposed to be a transition to chi sao, sticky hands, which then can be a further passage to grappling, but the skill level of most WC is too poor to be able to utilize that. An exception was Larry Hartsell who knew how to integrate grappling into chi sao, or was it chi sao into grappling?

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Regarding weapons, in Wing Chun the butterfly swords and the six and a half pole come at the end of the system, and most masters are pretty shit at this, since the system is very much for urban environments, and their focus is on teaching the punters unarmed skills, to get the biscuits. Even in the US there are problems with carrying such big knives in some jurisdictions, so the popularity of teaching these weapons, over smaller knives that can be hidden, is, not much. Most books treat the pole as an archaic weapon and simply cover it for historical completeness, when in fact, for many rural environments, the pole/ quarterstaff is an excellent melee weapon given room to maneuverer. The main books seldom feature how one would use Wing Chun weapons to fight other weapons from other systems, such as say a Viking Dane axe, or Chinese war sword, dadao. The focus is on doing the forms the way master did poo poos.

In conclusion, one would not be adequately trained in melee weapons from a conventional Wing Chun training. Far better to go to a Historical European Martial Arts School (HEMA), if you cannot be trained by James:

In the world of MMA, Wing Chun faces extinction, at least in the West, although it is more popular than ever in Hong Kong, becoming something of a symbol of Hong Kong. The system though suffers from the same “classical mess” that Bruce Lee saw in all the Eastern martial arts, including its theory of weaponry. Above all else, most practitioners are weak and soft, and you can tell this by looking at the rice/carbo guts. Muay Thai would eat them for a side dish, and a bum wrestler would bum them, sadly.

Still, this martial art, in my heretical modified form serves me well, and is one part of my neo-Viking system, that I personally train in, and never teach. Why teach? My training for survival is of key importance, and there is no time for anything else. I probably should have been training now instead of typing this shit. But, everyone wants a sense of closure.

That all said, there may be some things from the classical system worth salvaging:

as well as Wing Chun red pill lessons about crazy womyn:

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