Ming with Marco Hildebrandt – Core JKD European Headquarters #
— I wouldn’t say wing Chun is the system you use for that range (even if it was modified wing Chun). It is ONE of the systems you may pull from for that range but you can also pull from Kali Panantuken even some Muay Thai elbows. That’s the Beauty I find in JKD there’s no set way. Just move and do what you feel.
Ming—Thank you for your comment. Let me clarify:
Core JKD Wing Chun is the substrate used to read pressure and direction in a nonthinking, sightless manner once contact is made.
This clip was part of a larger demonstration depicting how we can use that Wing Chun foundation regardless of the tools we use to transition in our ranges. For instance, you see me using the hubud from the Filipino martial arts (where I had originally trained in the Inosanto/Lacoste system), which is often much easier to train people in a seminar with than starting them on chi sao.
If you have trained, you know that there are very few arts that actually train heightening the sensitivity of our skin to read pressure and direction with your eyes closed and then flowing with that information in a way that keeps your survival rate high regardless of the type of attacker confronting you what proficiency they may have in any particular range. Wing Chun training, and specifically Rebel Wing Chun, trains this to high levels.
Your comment “just move and do what you feel” is somewhat… erroneous. I mean no disrespect, mind you, but “do you what you feel” is often wrong in many cases. You say “in JKD there is no set way” when, in truth, there is– it is defined by the modality of the human body and the environment in which a person finds themselves.
There is a foundation.
There has to be an understanding of that foundation in order for you to be able to use it properly and grow as an individual in the art or your expression. This foundation is also absolutely essential in order for you to defend yourself in life-threatening situations.
The great misunderstanding many people have about JKD is that you simply pull from other arts that which feels good to you and then call it your own.
The only thing you can truly call your own is your expression, how your experiences move through you to be expressed to the world. The problem comes when one is confronted in a life-threatening situation, where an attacker has a specific intent. Combat in life-threatening situations actually narrows the field of available techniques quite a bit. When you include multiple attackers, it gets narrowed even further.
This is where the mentality of “pick what you want” and “do what you feel” becomes troublesome, if not fatal. Anyone who has trained students long enough will know that human beings sometimes choose movements or techniques that they feel are right, but are absolutely wrong in a particular moment against a particular attacker at a particular time in a particular environment.
This is where training in Rebel Wing Chun makes a difference. Our heightened sensitivity in any particular range (contact) allows us to move to the right technique based on what we feel—not do what we feel and choose techniques we like.
Thank you for your comment, really. Some of this needs to be addressed for other people who may have had the same response or questions that I hopefully have answered well-enough here.