| Rising to the Challenge...
I've been challenged- it's really quite exciting! It's all I've been thinking about training this week and I thought I'd ask you guys if you think it's worth a shot before I go to my Sigung and ask him if I can drag the association into it!
It all started a few months ago when we were visited at Crouching Tiger by a young lady who runs a martial arts school nearby. Very attractive, I don't mind telling you, but also a national champion in freestyle martial arts fighting. We chatted and it turned out she started in Shotokan, but mixed in a bit of TKD and a bit of Kick Boxing and now she runs this club. We went down to the lesson and watched them train, then we showed them a bit of our stuff- all very nice.
The lady then mentions she has a tournament coming up and would we be interested in competing. Sifu Tony smiled and explained how the Wing Chun we train was far too nasty for a Karate based competition and didn't lend itself to anything 'competitiony'.
Later, back at the shop, we had another visit. Now as I've said before, I trained Goju Kai for a number of years and used to compete regularly. I had been thinking about the offer and was wondering how we could water down WC enough to mix it up with these guys. Chatting it over, the lady in question ended up saying 'Bring it on- we're not afraid of you'.
Now baring in mind there's no kicks below the waist, no grabbing, no pulling, no take downs, no finger-strikes or elbows and only punches and kicks above the waist count- I would need to move along way towards my karate training to be able to compete. I will use grabs and spoils because that is Wing Chun and doing otherwise means it is pointless saying I am taking part and using WC- I might as well enter as a Karateka.
I have been back to the dojo this week and talked it over with some of the Karate dan grades I know.A result of which is that I know then as far as sparring is concerned I won't have a problem dominating the fight, with the exception of the blasted kicks! Especially the spinning back kick to the midsection. Now I have trained the theory of WC vs Kicks. I know it's supposed to be easy to overcome and I know how I'm supposed to do it. It practice I found it a little different.
Anyone got any tips, comments or abuse to hurl at me |