Instructor Visit: Wing Chun and TKD
Wednesday, November 2nd was a training night with a little difference – we had an evening of skill sharing between TaeKwon-Do and Wing Chun. A friend of mine, fellow Martial Artist and Kettlebell trainer, Russell Benham is an equivalent instructor grade in Wing Chun to my grade in TaeKwon-Do. He is a 3rd Technician, I am a 3rd Degree – different names, similar grades.
There was a particular point I wanted to get across to my senior (grown up) TaeKwon-Do students which I thought needed to be illustrated in an unusual way. I wanted to show students that Martial Arts training needs to be approached with real meaning, real intent, a real desire to do well, a promise to oneself that each technique is executed with realism.
Now, we do a lot of this at Banstead TaeKwon-Do but I wanted to show students that ‘being good’ at something is to do with ‘how’ you train rather than precisely (at first instance) the actual technique used in any one scenario. I knew that Russell is an excellent example of a martial artist, Wing Chun Kung-Fu being his art and I decided to invite him along to our class to a) show off a little and demonstrate that training with ‘a real desire to do well’ will get good results and b) to illustrate that while slightly different techniques are used (compared to TaeKwon-Do) the oomph with which they are executed causes the same desired end result, i.e. a win rather than a loss in a self defence situation.
My students have heard me stress these points and seen me illustrate with realism many many times, but sometimes it takes an unusual event to help things sink in and I am sure that my students were not surprised to hear Russell, of his own accord, stress the same points: approach training with realism, real intent, a real desire to do well and a promise to oneself that each technique is executed properly.
With Part One achieved nicely, we explored some similarities between Wing Chun and TaeKwon-Do counter attack applications to simple front line attacks. My students found it easy to spot the differences between the two arts, excellent, but needed some help in spotting the similarities – but that’s to be expected. There are many TaeKwon-Do movements in our 24 patterns and fundamental movements and my students would not have been shown the vast majority yet, however I am sure ‘the lights went on’ when applying Wing Chun moves to a simple front punch and then seeing similar moves from TaeKwon-Do – same end result, different path.
We all spent some time repeating some cool and interesting moves and then sat back while Russell performed a form from his Wing Chun syllabus and it was certainly delivered with realism, power, grace, accuracy, speed, balance and a real desire to do well – all attributes which we can apply to our own art, or any activity really.
What can we learn as TaeKwon-Do Students?
From this lesson in particular it was clear to see similarities in and differences between the two arts; clear to see that approaching your art with a desire to do well will improve your training, which ever art or activity you choose; clear to see that Russell Benham is a fantastic exponent of Wing Chun; clear to see that we benefited from his visit. The students would have made good mental connections between their line techniques and some interesting applications to attacks.
One of the biggest impacts and perhaps something we can learn to apply earlier in the TaeKwon-Do Student Development is the timeline of delivering techniques. Wing Chun can deliver multiple techniques in a blast of action, and while beginning TaeKwon-Do students perhaps don’t always see this although the techniques and the types of motion are available to us. The more senior one becomes in TaeKwon-Do the more one is able to apply the theory of power in a more speedy and devastating way than a beginner.
In Summary
To round off, I wanted to show students that:
“It’s not the art (particularly) but how it’s delivered” that’s important. By ‘how‘ I mean the difference between approaching your training and practice with lacklustre or approaching it with a real desire to do well and improve. Once students have understood this ‘how’ and apply it then they can go on to the technical TaeKwon-Do method of ’how’ to deliver a powerful technique by utilising all our training secrets to deliver maximum oomph!
Big Thanks to Russell Benham!
James Davis
