Wing Chun is useless?

Question

I was reading about Bruce Lee and he was talking about how he trained in Wing Chunfor god knows how many years and discovered it was not effective after he got into a street fight which is why he created his own martial art jeet-kune-do, what do you guys think about this?

Answer 1

boxing is the best for hand striking,boxing and muay thai will kill wing chun.

Answer 2

Hello, I read a lot on the wing chun and these origins and I practiced for 5 years already . Wing Chun, like Karate , comes from an ancient art called the White Crane. This art was taught by one of the five immortals Shaolin (female) and simplified later by another woman to become the Wing Chun. Personally, I think it is an effective martial art for street fight and after only two years of practice, some moves I learned are quickly becoming a part of me and sometimes I react by instinctively without having to think. I still think that no martial art is perfect and it is important to see the difference between a martial art and ca sport of combat . You must choose an art according to your needs and also its effectiveness depends on the fighter and not just depends on the art . Because art should be adapted to its adept and not the otherwise, as a tool must be adapted to the man who uses it. I more like the Shaolin Wing Chun style rather than the IP Man because it combines the crane and snake , while the Shaolin Wing Chun also uses the tiger claw . So I think the Shaolin style is more brutal. I "ve still noticed that Wing Chun has some weakness to ground combat so I decided to incorporate some movements of traditional Jujitsu and Aikido (Aiki- jujitsu). In this way, I strengthened my Wing Chun and I'm not afraid to be grab because I can do it too and I know to reverse the situation to my advantage...

Answer 3

Some say WC is useless, others swear it is the best system in the world.
In the end the truth is in the middle, it is as good as the student of the art, which is true for each and every style.
And if Bruce was still alive, JKD would not be what it was when he first 'created' it.
The 'best' styles are the ones which constantly adapt and evolve, but do not involve thousands of different moves/responses.
It is very true that action beats reaction, in particular at close range. Now if you have to decide which of the 3476 defence moves is the most appropriate one you'll probably go out cold within fractions of a second.
KISS, keep it stupid simple.
Most effective systems? Guns, knifes, or a vicious dog (I have a sour ginger cat, man, you won't mess with this one!).
Still have to find the person who fights exactly like one does in a kata, pattern, form.

Answer 4

Like a lot of people have mentioned here, Bruce Lee trained in Wing Chun for about five years under Yip Man. I don't think he ever felt the art was useless or else he wouldn't have built upon it. For instance, his kicking method does not involve chambering, but is instead more straightfoward like most strikes in Wing Chun (hence his excellent kicking speed). Also his famous "one inch punch" is derived from Wing Chun and other southern Kung Fu styles.

Now as for Wing Chun's effectiveness, it is actually used by certain armies and special forces (third link). German's CTU GSG9 members are trained in Wing Chun along with members of the Hungarian army. I doubt an army would incorporate a hand-to-hand combat system that would be useless into their training.

Of course like someone else mentioned, Wing Chun is not the end all to martial arts styles. However, to dismiss it as being ineffective is folly.

Answer 5

I'd certainly feel safer being trained in Wing Chun than with no training at all ;)

It's only natural that fighting styles should evolve to adapt to surroundings, which is why Jeet Kune Do was developed.

Answer 6

Bruce Lee trained in Wing Chun for about six months. Even some of his students admit it.

He was not a good student so he was not welcomed among the Chinese MA community.

He may have practiced the little WC he learned, but that is not enough to make an assumption.

I have a friend who does WC and he is dangerous.

Answer 7

Actually, what he said was that Wing Chun techniques alone wasn't adequate enough in a fight, Wing Chun is a close quarter range martial art, usually, a Wing Chun stylist practices with an opponent standing in front of him and they trade short punches, but in a real fight Bruce had difficulty in hitting his opponent because the other guy didn't stand still and Bruce supposedly ended up chasing the guy around and punching him in the back of the head instead, so he decided to incorporate other styles which would be more appropriate in situations like that. He created JKD with the idea of becoming proficient in all ranges of fighting whether close quarter, mid range or long range and also become familiar with other striking(boxing and Savate) and grappling styles(he regularly sparred with his students like Howard Nishioka who had blackbelts in Judo and trained with Prof. Wally Jay in Jujitsu, though he preferred to strike than to grapple), this is so he could easily adapt to any given situation in a real fight.

Answer 8

Bruce Lee was baned from continuing his training in Wing Chun by his teacher Ip Man.So he looked outside his training in W/C but his true art is Jun Fan Gung Fu as JKD is a process not a product or style.

Answer 9

Hi there

I think you may have misread his statement. Wing Chung is not useless it just suffers from lots of large forms which is common to most traditional martial arts. There's nothing wrong with traditional arts or forms for that matter. The problem lies in how the forms are practiced and interpreted. The knowledge of the style is contained within the forms but if your not capable of extracting the information then all that your left with is a painting by numbers exercise.

The hand techniques of wing chun are excellent and in my opinion way out class boxing which is very basic by comparison.

So to answer your question no its not useless it just purely depends on the individual and how capable they are of extracting and using the information available to them.

A factor that is common to all martial arts.


Best wishes

idai

Answer 10

If it wasnt for Wing Chun there wouldent be Jeet Kun Do. Traditional martial arts are a very good thing they provide a solid foundationg. But they arent practical for lots of situations like a street fight. Thats where Jeet Kun Do is good at. But traditional teaches you many thing philosophy self control ETC ETC.

Answer 11

No particular style is useless. Any fault Bruce Lee had with Wing Chun stemmed from his own inability to apply it in an efficient manner.