“The way in which knowledge progresses, and especially our scientific knowledge, is by unjustified (and unjustifiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions …  These (guesses) are controlled by criticism; that is, by attempted refutations …Criticism of our conjectures is of decisive importance: by bringing out our mistakes it makes us understand the difficulties of the problem which we are trying to solve. This is how we become better acquainted with our problem, and able to propose more mature solutions: the very refutation of a theory–that is, of any serious tentative solution to our problem–is always a step forward that takes us nearer to the truth. And this is how we can learn from our mistakes.”
Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations

This quote is from a book of scientific philosophy and basically I take it to mean that science can only progress by welcoming criticism.  “Criticism”, as he says, “is of decisive importance.”  We must put all out hypotheses to the test.  Will it work in real life?  And while I welcome the UFC and other sports arenas as partial laboratories, the ring isn’t the street and so we can’t make apple to apple comparisons.  We have to use our brains and make conjectures and inferences and hypotheses and then test them.

Wing Chun is the science of in-fighting.  We need to approach it scientifically.  Can I really deploy this action fast enough to work when my opponent is fast and aggressive and possibly armed?  This is true times 100 if they are actually armed.  Is the action you are using in your school a fantasy?  Put on some gear and creep a little closer to the line, as close as you can get.  To me, this is not squared up at a distance but standing face to face as in an argument in a bar or in the doorway of your house.  If some young, strong, fast opponent suddenly swung on you, what would work?

We can easily fool ourselves.  Sometimes, we get an unpleasant wake-up call in a beat down.  Lets test our hypotheses in the Kwoon, not on the street.

““I aim to fire off very short bursts of repeated shots – such as a palm strike or punch – assess – then do it again, or switch to another shot if the target changes for any reason and keep going until the threat no-longer exists.”
Mick Coup

Re-post of a discussion with Mick Coup, a former UK soldier and doorman now teaching people to fight.  I like these no-nonsense “blokes,” a breed of tough dudes the UK produces.  Reminds me of Geoff Thompson, Vinnie Jones, and every Guy Richie hero and villain.

The thing they all have in common is no-nonsense no-bullshit approach to fighting.  It’s said that you start with simplicity, travel through complexity, and arrive back at simplicity again with more clarity.  The “a punch is just a punch” idea.  The Wong Shun Leung version of Wing Chun has this perspective.  Its the perspective of experience.  Street fights will clear your head of BS!  Wing Chun, in its essence, is a no-BS system.  While we may not often find it practiced in this way, the ideas at its core are (as we say ad infinitum) simple, direct, and efficient.  Not fancy!  Many of his ideas could have come straight from the Wing Chun playbook (aka Wung Chun Kuen)

Some more good stuff below.

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“If you are un-armed, there is no defense against an opponent attacking with a knife…I have studied this issue for more than twenty-five years and have experienced the attentions of the finest instructors in the world. Please be assured that no martial arts school or technique can offer a predictable method of defense against a knife, and most of the techniques and methods one sees are suicidal against a knife fighter.”
Lt.Col. William E. Fairbairn, author of Get Tough! How to Win in Hand-to-Hand Fighting

“It did not last long. It is only in the movies that knife fighters stab and miss and slash and miss and tussle over several city blocks.”
James Jones, From Here to Eternity

The odds are greater that any knife assault you face will be at the hands of a criminal, not a trained Filipino martial artist. That means the nature of the attack is going to be significantly different. Don’t believe anyone who tells you other wise. These differences can and will kill you.
Marc MacYoung

“Why I Don’t Pretend to Teach Knife Defense” … is the title of a seminar that I’ve done a couple of times over the last few years … The class starts with some pictures I’ve collected of knife wounds, emphasizing that one set was from a prison shank, just a piece of metal that had been scraped on a floor, not some custom fighting knife sharpened to a razor edge. The most gruesome was a single cut from a kitchen knife. Gives them a very basic idea of what the hell they are talking about. What the stakes are if they choose to gamble in this arena. … Then I ask for someone with no experience or training with a knife. I take the volunteer aside, hand her the training knife and whisper, “Keep the knife moving, get it in to them any way you can. Cut anything they stick out, if someone grabs your hand switch hands and keep stabbing and slashing. Got it?” I then turn back to the students and say, “This person now has less than thirty seconds of knife training. Who in here teaches knife defense? … In a big diverse group, it quickly becomes clear that almost nothing works against a fast moving, aggressive knife.”
Rory Miller