Most of what is taught in self defence classes is absolute nonsense!!
Self defence courses are almost universally a total scam designed to breed false confidence, take your money and massage the ego of the instructor.
Self defence situations are by their very nature highly stressful adrenalin charged events. Adrenalin is a powerful hormone and whilst it supercharges the main muscles for a fight or flight response it also has side effects, the most relevant of which are reduced cognitive processing ( ability to think and recall) and reduced fine motor skills. In a self defence situation all of the fancy complex moves learnt in class will be forgotten and anything requiring careful co-ordination is a non starter.
Self defence moves need to be simple, rely on only on major muscle groups, be effective against a broad range of attack and above all have to be trained into muscle memory through endless repetition.
Parlour tricks learned in the comfort of a nice training hall with compliant partners who “attack” you in just the right way are not self defence, they are a recipe for getting hurt in a real self defence situation.
Many traditional martial arts fail in self defence situations because of the way that they are trained, with unrealistic attacks and compliant partners. Sports martial arts / combat sports such as Muay thai, boxing and MMA use live sparring and fighting to get practitioners accustomed to executing their techniques against opponents trying to hurt them and resisting their efforts. Unfortunately as these arts have developed over the years they have evolved to fit their particular rules and whilst highly effective this bias towards a rule based environment can leave them vulnerable when the assailant acts outside of the rule set, it also means that a lot of the techniques that level the playing field for smaller practitioners have been removed for safety.
With its simple techniques that are trained into muscle memory, combined with its close range fighting distance and highly developed tactile awareness Wing Chun kung fu is an effective for of self defence especially when it is trained correctly. At Worcestershire Wing Chun kuen we recognise the importance of pressure testing what students have learned and encourage all students to test themselves against training partners wearing full protective equipment attacking in realistic ways with full force and aggression. Nothing can replicate the adrenalin of the real thing. Getting into a ring or a cage is as close as it gets but that isn’t for everyone so at Worcestershire Wing Chun kuen we try to get as close as we can and then rely upon the automatic responses gathered through Wing Chun training to do the rest.
