Check up your Wing Chun
Sometimes you work out so much and  yet you don’t  see improvements. You feel stuck.

Or it happens  to train for a long time and  realize you’re not able to apply in a particular context  what you  have learned.
When one or both of these things happen, you feel downhearted.

You wonder why you can’t apply it and sometimes you end up blaming Wing Chun considering  ineffective, when the problem has  to be found somewhere else.
What I am about to present is a simple evaluation system, or self-assessment, taken from “Coaching”.
Before we begin, two clarifications:
1) Wing Chun is effective, but it is not the “cure for all our ills”. If it doesn’t work well how another system does, probably you are pulling it  in an environment in which another system is more specialized. Then, perhaps, the problem lies in the alignment between your objectives and instruments;
2)  Wing Chun does not make you unbeatable. You will always find a better fighter. If you lose the match, however, maybe is not  because you train Wing Chun.
The tool that we use for the assessment of  is the wheel into wedges.

 

 

 

A small description of the various segments:
1) athletic training: coordination, flexibility, balance, strength, speed, power, endurance…;
2) Technical Quality: As the name says, the quality of technical movements,  from the single technique, to the drill , to the more complex sequence;
3) impact Quality: The level  of conditioning of arms and legs from  by the Iron palm training, and  the ability to impact with power and precision on various pads/bags;
4) Sparring: The ability to apply drills in a non cooperative context.;
5) Combat Strategy: The ability to change fighting strategy to adapt it to the kind  of opponent and kind of fighting;
6) Stress Management: The ability to remain focused under pressure;
7) Motivations / beliefs: The reasons that led you to practice Wing Chun and beliefs on Wing Chun and about yourself;
8) System Knowledge: Knowledge of the principles and strategies of Wing Chun.
Now, for the analysis, just give a score from 1 to 100 for each sector and the paint   the corresponding wheel sector according to  this value. If in an area you feel perfectly satisfied, give 100 and paint the entire sector . Analyze the next sector and so on  until the entire wheel is covered.
When you finish, look at the entire wheel..
Example:
A Wing Chun practitioner has an excellent technical quality, he is good in drills in an uncooperative environment, he has an excellent knowledge of the system, it is motivated and with a great confidence in himself.
A great practitioner, right?
Still, let’s assume that he is not able to fight well and he begins  to think Wing Chun doesn’t work. Where the problem may lie?
If we analyze all sectors, we may see that he lacks  in athletic training (he’s not able to hit with power), he  lacks of  impact quality (his hands and shins are not conditioned), when he  is under pressure he panics and fails in applying techniques and his  strategy, even if is good , is not  good enough to adapt him to the opponent or to the kind of fight.

So, with a better analysis, we find that what we considered a good practitioner, is not so good, and we have found where he lacks and what he as to train more.

We also prove him that it is his fault and not Wing Chun fault.
The model we are examining is called the wheel because it should be able to roll. The first analysis to do so is the entire model.
Always ask yourself If this were a real wheel, would you  put it to on your car?

When everything is good, this is what you should have: A harmonic wheel.

What is Crossfit?

CrossFit is a regime of fitness developed by Greg Glassman over several decades. Glassman, founder and CEO of CrossFit, was the first person in history to redefine fitness, in a measured and sensible manner with the increase in performance through vast beaches of work varied and timed. He then created a program specifically designed to improve fitness and health.

CrossFit is a variety of exercises carried out at relatively high intensity. All CrossFit workouts are based on functional movements, and these movements reflect the best aspects of gymnastics, weightlifting, running, rowing, and others.

These are the basic movements of everyday life. The crossfitters can move heavy loads over long distances, this are so movements perfect for maximizing the amount of work performed within a time course.

The intensity is essential for results that are then measured and divided by time or power.

More working time courses, greater will be the output power and more intense effort.

It is using an approach constantly varied exercises, functional movements and intensity you will get spectacular gains on your fitness.

That sense of community that develops spontaneously when people do the workouts together is a key component of the effectiveness of CrossFit. This community to gave birth today to a global network of over 11,000 affiliates.

Cultivate the natural camaraderie, the spirit of competition and the pleasure of sport gives an intensity that cannot be matched otherwise.

The CrossFit program is driven by statistics.

The use of whiteboards as dashboards, recording the results and records, the creation of specific issues, the timing of each activity, and then redefining clarifies rules and performance goals. It does not motivate only for the following results but also for the objective and analysis on statistics for each workout.

Overall, the CrossFit to designed a general fitness, supported by measurable, observable and reproducible results.

The program prepares students for any eventuality, not only physical, for the unknown, but for the unpredictable also.

Crossfit and Wing Chun: “by Carlos Sousa – CRCA-PORTO (Portugal) an active member”

I practice Crossfit for over 4 years now and in my case, it helped me a lot to improve my Wing Chun. The idea of Wing Chun is to pull, push, hit, run away from the opponent, to the opponent, be fast in our movements such as blocking and attacks and maintain its balance at any moment.

Control of the body is not only possible through the formation of Wing Chun, but for this it is necessary to improve our control to apply it against an opponent.

Wing Chun demonstrates how to use the strength of the opponent and hit back through his power. But do you think that all these concepts can be improved with training of power, cardiovascular, body control, etc…?

Over the years, I do a search on the street fights and competitions and I realized that in 90% of defeats combatants who lose, are out of breath and start to be very tired just before losing the fight. It is therefore of great importance for us (amateur martial arts) try to stay fresh as long as possible during a fight.

It is very difficult to plan an offensive tactic or to block the attack of an opponent if we are very tired or short of breath, this is why that I integrated into my training exercises to stay sharp as long as possible.

The type of training that I am stirring Crossfit and Wing Chun is based on these keys I’m talking about above. Here is an example of training to simplify your understanding:

To begin with, I am doing a normal warmup as everyone knows to do. Rotations of the arms, legs and the rest of the body with light stretching copying the movements of the body that I’ll use later under stress and effort, and then I do 1 km run or 5 minutes of jump rope.

Once the warm-up finished, I chained the following sequences to fatigue me: (based on the Crossfit program)

AMRAP 20′ (AMRAP means “as many series as possible in 20 minutes)

5 pull-ups

10 push ups

15 squats

Always try to give the best of yourself and always follow your results; in this case, your serial numbers. This way you can see your performance to improve day by day.

In the end, without rest, with a partner, I perform a blocking Tan Sau, and with another I give 5 demonstrations blocking Tan Sau against a Jab. Two blows, kicks, as in an attack then the ground fighting. I try to do this very quickly to try to end up tired and out of breath.

If I’m alone, I write on paper exercises, this has the same effect as creating a tactic when you are fatigued.

When I finished situations I choose a fresh partner and made 2 sets of 3 minutes of training of shots using only Wing Chun techniques.

On the first series I leave the opponent hit me punching or kicking in a free way using only complex attacks and attacks.

For the second series I freely use all the techniques of Wing Chun.

If I don’t have a partner, I use the Dummy, punch bag and double PEAR attached representing the opponent.

Remember the example here we give to aims to show how I associate the Crossfit and Wing Chun.

In the future, I will only give advice to the CrossFit workouts.

Assume you all know how Wing Chun works and how you can associate it with the CrossFit (if you have more questions about Wing Chun you can always contact Sifu Mario Lopez.)

ACRONYMS / abbreviations which will be needed.

AMRAP – as many rounds as possible

BP – benchpress

BS – back squat

BW – bodyweight

C & J – clean and jerk

DL – deadlift

DB – dumbells

FS – front squat

HPC – hng clean power

HS – handstand

HSPU – handstand push ups

KB – kettlebell

K2E – Knees to elbows

MU – muscle up

OH – overhead

OHS – overhead squat

PC – power clean

PJ – push jerk

PP – push press

PU – pull up

REPS – rehearsals

RM – repetition maximum

SDHP – sumo deadlift high pull

SJ – split jerk

TABATA – 8 round of 20 second workout and 10 seconds rest

T2B – toes to bar

WOD – workout of the day

For future workouts if you see a few abbreviations that you don’t know, go back to this list.