wing chun weapons

[madlilpimp]

My sifu recently stated teaching escrima with wing chun. Ive noticed alot of clubs teach wing chun together with escrima .Wing chun already already has its own weapon forms .So i was i thinking are these people deciding to teach escrima because wing chun has a poor weapons system .Does anyone know how how the baat cham do form compare's to escrima.

[John Weiland]

Originally posted by madlilpimp
My sifu recently stated teaching escrima with wing chun. Ive noticed alot of clubs teach wing chun together with escrima .Wing chun already already has its own weapon forms .So i was i thinking are these people deciding to teach escrima because wing chun has a poor weapons system .Does anyone know how how the baat cham do form compare's to escrima.

I've never heard of a recorded instance of combat between Wing Chun knives and Escrima swords, but there is no reason I would have.

That was to give an answer (or perhaps a nonanswer to your question.)

In my lineage of Wing Chun, the weapons sets are there to train the hands. We consider Wing Chun to be strictly an empty hands system.

As for learning or teaching Escrima weapons, it sounds like a logical add-on to self-defense to me. JKD makes this connection.

Sticks or knives magnify one's destructive potential. Personally, in a street situation, I'd use a weapon if my opponent had one or if I was out-numbered and couldn't escape. If I was up against some ordinary hot-head, I'd deal with it with my hands, again, if I couldn't escape.

Regards,

[Mckind13]

JW

I have to say that I think I disagree with you regarding the purpose of the weapons. I would however like to know how you qualify "the weapons sets are there to train the hands. "

Can you explain what you mean as far as hands and how they are trained by the weapons?

David

[Sandman2[Wing Chun]]

You might want to ask rene, I belive there is a story about Sum Nung vs. an escrimadore.

[rubthebuddha]

the two work well together conceptually and in practice, provided it's one of the more stripped-down forms of escrima (like latosa).

having never done wc weapons, i can't make any statements regarding them. i do know escrima teaches you to be able to use just about anything as a weapon, and that in itself is very important.

[John Weiland]

Originally posted by Mckind13
JW

I have to say that I think I disagree with you regarding the purpose of the weapons. I would however like to know how you qualify "the weapons sets are there to train the hands. "

Can you explain what you mean as far as hands and how they are trained by the weapons?

David

Hi David,

Remember that I am speaking of my understanding of the Leung Sheung lineage under which I train.

Using the same principles as with we train the hands, we train the weapons to develop what we call "long bridge energy," long and lasting power. Of course, if you're on a red boat and fending off an attack, picking up a pole or a pair of knives would be handy for defense.

As for using the weapons, Leung Sheung obviously meant them to be used for real situations. He refused to teach the knives to anyone he didn't believe would use them in real world circumstances. Ken Chung adheres to this same teaching principle.

Regards,

[anerlich]

My personal opinion is that Filipino systems are easier to tailor to a wider variety of weapons, and particularly to small knives and using the "alive" hand. Also, unlike most chinese and other systems, they start with weapons and finish with unarmed combat and thus on the whole spend MUCH more time training with weapons.

But also I feel that most Kung Fu systems (not just WC) adapt their empty hand systems to the use of weapons better than many others. like Japanese systems where your karate is different to your bojutsu and different to your kendo, etc.

[YongChun]

In the early 1980's we had a good Escrima teacher at our club. Back then we trained the Wing Chun knives for combat, practicing first against the wooden Japanese sword and then using sticks padded with foam and taped to simulate the knives for a type of sparring. One person in our club was also a fencing teacher. He fashioned some knives out of a stiff kind of foam using some wood for the part you grip.

I tried a match using the knives against the single Escrima stick. The result was that I got whacked in the head real good. Even though the Escrima stick was padded with foam, it drew some blood. Then the fencing teacher tried. His footwork was much quicker than mine. His skill in the knives was less than the skill of the Escrima teacher with his stick however in a match it proved to be a draw. It looked like simultaneous mutual annihilation. So from that I extrapolated that someone proficient in the Wing Chun knives could be a good enough match for an Escrimador.

I think it is not so practical and there is not that much interest to train the Wing Chun knives for combat. As a result much of the skill may have been lost that Southern stylists used to possess. However here and there there are probably still a few people that train the knives for combat. Robert Chu told me a long time ago that Hawkins Cheung was/is pretty good with the knives.

In the Wing Chun world, some have added Escrima to their repertoire but have neglected to develop the skill with their own weapons. This is a bit of a shame.

As to which is really better, it's hard to say. Depends on who is wielding the weapons. I would probably put my money on the Escrimador these days because they spend as much time with their weapons as Wing Chun people spend with their empty hand Chi Sau.

The most practical weapon other than the gun may be the short combat knife. But when talking about weapons there are no more rules. Once you start on weapons then anything goes from AK47's to acid and Bombs. So I presume we are talking about the ART of it all and in that context some comparison can be made between Escrima/Arnis and Wing Chun. Technically Escrima seems much richer in technique and training procedures than does Wing Chun. Then again in a real weapons fight, winning movements are probably quite simple.

On second thought I may put my money on the Gurkhas bladed weapons skill. A Reader's Digest from many many years ago reported on the skill of these people. In one encounter Three German's who had the Gurkha at close range gunpoint were killed, having underestimated the threat.

I think technically Escrima and Wing Chun weapons use are different with conflicting body mechanics. In fencing a champion in foil is not usually a champion in Epee or Sabre. So even though to the non-expert the three blades look almost the same, technically suble differences in use make a large difference in the result. The difference between Escrima and Wing Chun knives are even greater.

Since blade and stickwork is taught first in Escrima, I would say the same can be done in Wing Chun. The pole and knives can be taught first. If one really wants to be good with Wing Chun knives then probably it would pay to start training those at a much earlier stage than 10 years after one start Wing Chun (depending on the starting age of the practitioner of course).

One thing about the match between a single stick and a knife is that the weight of the weapons should be matched in order to get a similar speed. But against a heavy sword the Baat Jam Do need to also be heavy otherwise the sword can cut right through. If one is super skillful, I suppose then there would never be a clash of blades but if this can be affected in reality, who knows?

This is just my very simplistic analyis.

[yuanfen]

Hi Ray- Good post.

Some thoughts FWIW and very much IMO.

1. Weapons are just instruments- they can be used for different purposes depending on user and intention.

2. Re- Ip man's usage of weapons- he apparently showed usage here and there- but as far as sustained point by point training
in their usage- he taught very very few.(See cooroboration from WSL in David Peterson's book. WSL shared his form with several others. Ho kam Ming is another person who learned the full Ip man version from Ip man. Knowing sequences is not enough-the details do matter. Some have preserved knowing the fighting usage of the wing chun weapons.

Corinna my kung fu sister(Little Raven- she has a website) a sifu Fong student makes bjd-s out of tough artificial material - cutting board like stuff-
which can be used for two person work.

3. Learning the short and the long wing chun weapon with the right footwork makes for great adaptibility to anything in one's hands. The double bjd among other things teaches balance and two hand coordination and lots and lots of very mobile footwork.
Same for the kwan.. You can fight with one weapon.

4 I have never felt the need for learning the Filipino arts- wing chun training and my back ground has served me well. I feel comfortable with escrima sticks etc.

5. As i understand it the WT folks added escrima because bjd training comes late in their curricu;um and they wanted something practical earlier.

6. BTW- I have attended a guro Rene Latosa seminar. he is good- but I stick to wing chun. My wc paradigm works fine for me.

7. Right on the Gurkhas. But there a lot of wannabe Gurkhas
even in armies..
The real ones are from some key clans- specially the Gurungs and the Thappas--- intergenerational traditions and teaching. I have had the good fortune of having had two Gurungs as teachers- the first guarded our compound during civil strife. The second was in the Indian army. In 1947 the Indian Army and the british army
divided up the gurkha regiments among themselves. There is a slice of the northern part of my home state which is part of traditional Gurkha land. Yung Gurkha boys train their hands and legs first - before graduating to weapons.
The Brits used the Gurkhas against the Sikhs in the 19th and early 20th century, against the germans and Japanese in WW2,
border patrol along the PRC/HK., Against the Argentines in the Falkland war, peacekeeping in Kosovo and Afghanistan. They are being abndoned gradually by the Brits with shrinking usage- transfer of HK etc. The Indians used them aginst Pakistan in 1948, 1965 and in 2000 in Kargil, in the liberation of Bangladesh
in 72 and later briefly in peace keeping in Sri lanka

joy

[Tom Kagan]

As a rule of thumb, the younger the system of martial art, the less "hand-to-hand" weapons it has. However, this does not automatically infer a given system (such as Ving Tsun) younger than another (such as Escrima) is lacking. It only reflects two simple and practical realities: 1) All martial arts throughout history decendant from the Military introduce weapons almost immediately along with heavy conditioning and maximum force generation (Ving Tsun does not fit this pattern), and 2) Ving Tsun was developed during the age of gunpowder.

Though Escrima is scarcely older than Ving Tsun, those relative few years do make a difference. Additionally where Escrima was developed was also more isolated from modern weapon systems for a much longer time.

Still, it is a rather far leap to get to the conclusion of a deficiency in any one thing based upon something else entirely which may or may not be popular within a given martial arts school. I don't see how such a surface comparison as the one you made would be any different in this regard than if you did the same in any other field of study.

Ving Tsun weapon theory and application compare quite favorably to other arts. My SiHing, John Cheng, was the one who demonstrated this to Dan Inosanto by developing a relationship and exchanging ideas "the hard way" using nothing but Escrima's weapon cache. It was these sessions which prompted Dan Inosanto to also become a student of Moy Yat.

"When you control the hands and feet, there are no secrets." -- Ving Tsun Kuen Kuit.

[yuanfen]

Inosanto should not be underestmated- he has squared off (interacted)with two well known wing chun sifus who think(thought) that they know the bjd.
Never mind the names. A wing chun student of mine also studied with Inosanto and very much respects him- and is certified in several arts including grappling from the academy.

[Mckind13]

Hello all,

I have read the discussion above and want to chime in.

Weapons train more then hands!

The Knife, while a reflection of the hands contains methods for training and applying the hands linked and delinked with the body. It also trains a different footwork that might be described as chasing and crashing methods that are not wholly present in the handsets. Additionally it teaches a fluid sequence of attacking and killing the opponent. A Butchers mindset if you will that adds to the combat effectiveness of the art by adding a mental cruelty needed for combat.

The Pole teaches body usage above all else. Moving a 9 foot pole around like a toothpick requires the perfect integration of body and structure. The pole also teaches angles of attack, patience in lining up the position and strike, it teaches strategy because the attacks need to be precise and accurate, as the pole does not make two sounds.

In regards to escrima, I began learning Mark Wiely's (SP) integrated Escrima methods and they are very effective.
I would have to be sharp and on the ball to deal well with them vs. my smaller BJD. On the other hand, I did quite well stick on stick with some more experienced people using my sense of Wing Chun timing and the basic cuts I had learned.

Cheers
David

[Tom Kagan]

As some others do too, Dan Inosanto has the ability to look at a given situation and/or application and immediately "dissect it" into its true nature to get at the core essence of what is at hand.

What I was trying to say, perhaps unclearly before, was that when Dan Inosanto observed John Cheng, a Ving Tsun practitioner who, at the time, had no training whatsoever in Escrima or its weapons, start to use weapons foreign to him in a way which showed John Cheng also understood the nature of what he was holding, it impressed Dan Inosanto enough to investigate the methods which led John Cheng to this knowledge solely via the art of Ving Tsun - an art which, at the time, my future SiHing supposedly "knew" already.

If there was even a hint of underestimating Dan Inosanto in my last post, that was not my intention. I have nothing but respect and a bit of awe for his knowledge, skill, and accomplishments. I'm sorry if I caused any confusion.

[yuanfen]

No confusion Tom. I understood your point and agree.

[reneritchie]

Sandman2-

Just a small story. The escrima guy, in his 30s, I think, mentioned to my late sigung how much more realistic Escrima weapons were. My sigung, around 70 something at the time, had been drinking a wee bit, and offered to give the guy a go with the sticks (Sum Nung loved fighting). The young guy didn't do so well.

John, David,

In my experience, you're both right. The base boxing lays the foundation for weapons which then polish the boxing, and development becomes iterative. If you need to use weapons, they're there, and if you don't, the boxing has benefitted either way, both from the raw material in the sets/methods, and the training of cultivating that material (and more to the point, a certain revelation of brutal clarity).

Someone who's put their work into the hands and the weapons is usually pretty darn devastating with both.