Is it ok for Wing Chun to evolve?

[YungChun]

Ok, but MT and Western Boxing are sports with set rules. Yes they can be very effective for self defense but they are sports. Ground fighting is outside the rules of those sports.

WC is a martial art with a focus on self defense. Ground fighting was not common in southern China and thus WC did not need to deal with it.

However in the US ground fighting is common. Wrestling is big in a lot of areas of the country as well as Judo and BJJ.

Now, should WC evolve to deal with this situation or should it ignore ground fighting and say go else where to learn that.

I don't have an answer for that but I think your answer would depend on your view of what is and isn't WC.

I don't know if VT could "evolve" to do something completely outside its scope.. I think the real answer here is that there is too much speculation and not enough application... How do you use VT to deal with a grappler? The answer is simple: You go and get the best core VT training you can get, which probably isn't worth the effort because you'd need to travel, seek out different people and do the homework, this is what it takes if that's what you want..

Then after you get a strong core, good/hard basic training you go and spar with lots of grapplers.. What sets VT apart (makes it different) from many other striking arts is that it addresses breaking structure, stealing balance, controlling the opponent in a myriad of ways (some are quite sneaky, yet are all but ignored).. If you can get to a point where you can apply that in sparring then you can use it to take the grappler's or the whoever's game away.

But people need to go and take that solid core (after they get one) and then really do the work of applying it against good grapplers, ideally with a good VT coach.. This is what it takes to learn how to deal with X, go fight X and do it over and over and over again.... If people were focused on the doing instead of the thinking IMO there wouldn't be so much theory and confusion concerning these things you just go do it..

Also on evolution: Everyone's fighting evolves, irrespective of the art they do... VT is no different, if you fight, if you train, it will be your skills that evolve, which is different from changing the core training which also has evolved and changed...

As for when the fight goes to the ground some people may feel VT addresses this.. Fine but the onus is on them to show it, to make it functional.. If the case is that VT does not have the ground answers then we simply do what everyone else does--cross train ground arts...