Does Ving Tsun (詠春) work?

Skinny me playing with the Heavy Bag

Now before I provide my own experience on this matter, please note that I am only speaking in terms of the WSL Lineage and not the other Ving Tsun (Wing Chun lineages). Why? because I have never trained in the other types of Ving Tsun so it would be unfair for me to give my opinion based on speculations.

Now on to the main topic, does Ving Tsun work? well, to start off, Sifu Wong Shun Leung went out and challenge various Chinese Martial Arts Schools back in the 50’s and 60’s. The reason for the challenges was for him to see if what he was learning from Ip Man really worked. After many encounters, I am sure he won some and lost some (afterall, he was human) Note he actually won most of them, he began to make small adjustments to Ving Tsun which he felt was justified based on this fight experiences. I believed he even discussed the situation with Ip Man about the various changes. So throughout those years, he tested it and felt it was combat effective to him. Now does that mean if I learned from him, I will be a badass like him? Contrary to that thinking, that was not exactly how I felt when I started learning.

When I started back in the early 1980’s I was only about 9 or 10 years old, so I was learning the basic form and how to punch and some details about the form. Initially, I was actually very unimpressed, the stance was ugly, no high kicks, no belts, the form felt like it had nothing to do with learning how to fight. Heck, when I was in boarding school, people asked me to show them Chinese Kung Fu, and I showed them the Siu Nim Tau, they all laughed. After a few school yard fight, which I lost, I pretty much said this stuff don’t work.

Years later during my teenage years, I continued training off and on in Ving Tsun but still not understanding fully what I was doing, I ended up taking Tae Kwon Do on the side. I learned only up to Green Belt in Tae Kwon Do, which basically mean I still don’t know jack, and I remembered one incident, where I got into another typical school yard fight and I kicked the guy with a round house kick just beneath the ribs and he immediately charged towards me after eating the kick, and all hell broke loose again. After that incident, I was like okay.. so maybe Tae Kwon Do isn’t the answer either. Or it could be, I just sucked at both and couldn’t fight worth a damn. So I started to re-examine what type of martial arts really would work for me. I took a few lessons in Aikido, but it was not quite a fit for my personality. Thus back to Ving Tsun training I went, but this time with better focus. Really asking questions, thinking about and observing my fellow Sihings. As I continued to train, I began to take it more seriously, spending hours and nights in the kwoon trying to push myself and test myself with everyone. Eventually an opportunity for a full contact tournament came up and I signed up and won. Fast forward to a few more years and couple unfortunate street altercations, I have somehow been able to prove to myself that Ving Tsun worked for me, and it worked because I was very diligent in my training.

Now what the heck did my experience had to do with the question? Well, my experience is very similar to quite a number of my fellow Sihings who also learned from Sifu Wong Shun Leung. They had moments in their life where they had to use Ving Tsun to either survive an encounter or to use Ving Tsun in a competition setting to proof to themselves that Ving Tsun did work. But this all comes back to the training and your mental game. What is your end goal with learning Ving Tsun? Self-defense/ fighting is never pretty, you must be willing to give it AND take it. You can’t train like it’s a morning exercise and expect it to work for you when you have not given it the proper dues. If you can’t take a bloody lip or a bruised nose during training, I am not sure how it will work for you when you need it out there in the wild.

To sum it up, you must train hard, train like you are about to go fight tomorrow (not literally, of course) and be willing to keep testing yourself against different opponents. Just like many of us who are teaching, we made Ving Tsun work for us and we have encounters that provides an insight on how it worked for us, but that does NOT mean you will immediately make it work if you learned from us. I can only guide you, but you must put in the work and be willing to always re-examine yourself. Always push yourself to the limit and always question yourself on how you are going to make Ving Tsun work for you. Know what it feels like to train when you are angry, or when you are calm. Know how to react when you get hit and your eyes water up. Don’t go half-ass and Don’t give up. I made Ving Tsun work for me, but whether you can make it work is totally up to you.

HUGE Disclaimer- I am not advocating you to go out there and pick a fight, not only is that dangerous AND stupid, but you literally could die, but do train hard in the kwoon and have a Sihing/Senior take it up a notch with you so you can experience what it feels like to have you body tense up and adrenaline going.