Q&A - Anti-Grappling
Rene Ritchie, February 11th, 2008
Toby asks:
[What about] anti-grappling?
Great question!
There are four main kinds of “anti-grappling” in Wing Chun Kuen.
The first is the basic, core mechanics of almost all Wing Chun, where the paths and positions themselves make it difficult for an opponent to initiate or counter with a joint lock or throw. Keeping the elbow down and in, for example, makes it hard to lock the elbow; keeping the weight far-loaded makes it hard to sweep the closer-leg for a takedown.
The second is the traditional Fan Kum Na (Counter Seizing and Holding) taught in some, primarily Fung Siu-Ching descended branches of Wing/Weng Chun. These are specific movements designed to reverse joint-locks or throws in order to break joints or impact the attacker, clearing the way for finishing the fight.
The third is Wing Chun Kuen people who have prior, simultaneous, or later experience in a grappling system (judo, wrestling, BJJ, etc.) who take the concepts of Wing Chun Kuen and the experience of grappling and work out ways to leverage the former against the latter.
The fourth is modern marketing, trying to make a buck off the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu boom of the 80s, by placing adds or writing articles stating that, without any knowledge of grappling, the advertiser/writer could easily destroy a straw-man grappler with devastating (but seldom specifically detailed) movements. (I.e., You won’t be seeing them actually applying it in the UFC any time soon).
What’s the bottom line? Grappling and MMA scared a lot of people and they reacted by either finding grapplers and training to use their Wing Chun against them, finding grapplers and learning grappling, or by making up stories about how they would kill grapplers (which is illegal, so they unfortunately can’t ever show you).
To highlight some of the problems with “anti-grappling”, think of it this way:
If “anti-grappling” makes sense to you, how does “anti-striking” grab you? Go on, quit Wing Chun Kuen and go learn striking (punching and kicking) from Judo legend Yoshida or BJJ pioneer Royce Gracie?
No? Why not?
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