Recently I came across a video in which someone claimed dubious things about Wing Tsun (WT). The video received 30k likes, even though its producer confused screen kungfu with practical Wing Tsun. I would like to comment on this.
The criticism of some comments is characterized by ignorance. It’s like predicting boxing from training on a speedball, or predicting an orchestral score from tuning a violin. In reality, it’s all about creating the conditions under which what has to prove itself in practice can be rehearsed.
To generally claim that there is no sparring in Wing Tsun is downright nonsense. In my school there is sparring at different levels of intensity. On the lowest step, a student stands in the middle, where he has to parry a single attack from the bystanders in turn and practice follow-up techniques on the frozen attacker.
At the highest intensity level, a student lies on his back on the ground and is kicked by those around him, so that he first has to fight his way up and then assert himself against three opponents at the same time, who constantly attack him with fists, kicks, training knives and training batons. (Is something similar also trained in MMA?)
To achieve this, the practicioner has to get going, must always remain on the flank and not only disarm the attackers, but if required also grab them and use the strength of his torso to throw them against the next attacker before turning to the third. This pretty sweaty and quickly pushes even well-trained WT practitioners to their physical limits.
Sparring is a term from boxing, it is not used in WT for good reason. However, something that is very similar to sparring and can be practiced at different levels of intensity does exist in WT. Claims to the contrary are to be classified as disinformation.