The transcript below is from the video “Can I Make Wing Chun Work?” by Sensei Seth.

Sensei Seth:

Not gonna lie, I always thought that Wing Chun is a martial art kind of sucked. I would see stuff like this online and I’d be like, “oh, that would never work”. Then this very guy DM’d me – Kevin Lee, super good at Wing Chun. So I challenged him and myself to see if he could teach me the most useful parts of Wing Chun and then I would try and use them. However, there’s a catch, I only get to learn from Kevin for one day.

Kevin Lee:

Okay.

Sensei Seth:

That doesn’t even [inaudible] it, that’s cool?

Kevin Lee:

Yeah. Yeah, of course.

Sensei Seth:

Oh, usually this is the part where it’s like, “oh, that’s gonna be difficult”.

Kevin Lee:

I think you can do it.

Sensei Seth:

It’ll be fine.

Kevin Lee:

You can’t do it.

Sensei Seth:

The first thing we needed to do to get me acclimated to the Wing Chun style was the stance.

Kevin Lee:

You stand feet together. Second, toes apart. Third, heels apart. Fourth, drag your hip up. So, heel, toe and set.

Sensei Seth:

So, question – Why?

Kevin Lee:

For training, you want to make sure you’re engaging muscles, relaxing your body and staying tall. I’ll just give it a little push.

Sensei Seth:

Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Lee:

Engage that little bit, right there, push. See?

Sensei Seth:

Definitely much sturdier. But do you fight like that?

Kevin Lee:

No.

Sensei Seth:

Throughout this day of learning, we’re gonna be looking at about four different things. We’re gonna look at the stance. We’re gonna be looking at how they punch, which is, frankly, completely abnormal from other martial arts. We’re gonna be looking at any kicks they might do. And lastly, how they defend in general. I don’t really need this piece of paper.

Sensei Seth:

So, it’s for the sake of getting the muscles?

Kevin Lee:

Understanding body. Correct. This is probably not ideal for fighting because you’re staying like this, right.

Sensei Seth:

Yeah, right.

Kevin Lee:

I mean, you’ll see more in the movies.

Sensei Seth:

Yeah.

Kevin Lee:

But to really actually get into sparring, like, the personal way I do it, is to do this.

Sensei Seth:

Kevin is super interesting to learn from because not only does he know a ton about Wing Chun, but he also is well versed in other martial arts.

Sensei Seth:

Now, you recommend they’ll probably go higher and closer to the head.

Kevin Lee:

High like this.

Sensei Seth:

Okay, is this a specific lineage of Wing Chun?

Kevin Lee:

If you look back to history, right, Wing Chun was, like, for self-defense and killing art.

Sensei Seth:

Yeah.

Kevin Lee:

So, there are swords that get applied. It doesn’t make sense if you’re empty hands doing this.

Sensei Seth:

Yeah.

Kevin Lee:

But if you put two swords on your hand. Well, two daggers on your hand, that makes more sense. I can do palm forward, palm in or pump like this.

Sensei Seth:

Okay.

Kevin Lee:

I personally prefer this way, where my fingers are vertical because where I want to strike is gonna be like this and boom like that.

Sensei Seth:

Now, as I mentioned before, Wing Chun has some odd punches. So I was interested to hear how we explained it.

Kevin Lee:

It’s as if it doesn’t matter if you study boxing, Thai boxing, and all the different sources, right. People tend to punch horizontally.

Sensei Seth:

Yeah.

Kevin Lee:

In Wing Chun specifically, we punch vertically.

Sensei Seth:

So you’re making contact with the bottom three fingers.

Kevin Lee:

You want to tilt upwards. Now your wrist is strong. When you push forward, everything comes from the elbow.

Sensei Seth:

Interesting.

Kevin Lee:

We call that the elbow alignment.

Sensei Seth:

Okay.

Kevin Lee:

Pull back and punch with everything relying on the muscles.

Kevin Lee:

Notice how when I extend my arm, my body is straight but I turn my heel a little bit when I hit the bag.

Kevin Lee:

Everything happens within that couple of inches.

Kevin Lee:

Think of extending your arm fully like an archer shooting an arrow. When you strike, pull and drop your weight. Go!

Kevin Lee:

Good! Now instead of pushing it, strike it!

Kevin Lee:

Yeah! That’s it!

Sensei Seth:

Okay got it. Everything long and boom!

Kevin Lee:

Just like that!

Sensei Seth:

I was still a little curious about the way this punch happens. So, I figured I’d do some testing by myself.

Sensei Seth:

Before we start sparring, I feel like it’s important that I test these punches out. So that’s what we’re doing now.

Sensei Seth:

I want to test it on a cantaloupe. The scientifically proven and most accurate fruit to a head [minus the science part].

Sensei Seth:

These are like some of the smallest bones of our body. So the idea of using the smallest of the smallest bones, it’s a little scary to me.

Sensei Seth:

Aww, I shouldn’t have worn a white shirt.

Sensei Seth:

After about seven punches, we got a little bit of damage. Just to compare, let’s now go with the big knuckles.

Sensei Seth:

Oh yeah, I mean it’s so hard.

Sensei Seth:

All the more painful in the pinky knuckles than the big ones but also, I’ve trained that my whole life.

Sensei Seth:

Maybe a watermelon will be a little different. What do you think bud? Do you want some cantaloupe?

Sensei Seth:

Oh that one did it! It kind of looks a tongue.

Sensei Seth:

Test complete.

Sensei Seth:

Are there any kicks in Wing Chun.

Kevin Lee:

We don’t kick a lot but we do what we can. So, we have a short kick okay and a long kick.

Kevin Lee:

We’re going to do a round kick.

Kevin Lee:

Because imagine that you’re sitting in a closed room setting yeah you can’t lift your knee. So a lot of motion that you tend to see is this type of motion – the knee lifting.

Kevin Lee:

We don’t kick so much in the front.

Sensei Seth:

Okay.

Kevin Lee:

Muscle on the side like this. We slap it.

Sensei Seth:

Okay okay.

Kevin Lee:

This is a good one. It’s like a knee check on the foot. This is one way we can do it, this another way and one more way.

Sensei Seth:

Okay so like an oblique kick.

Kevin Lee:

Basically yes.

Sensei Seth:

Okay now Wing Chun is a martial art that keeps their hands super low so there must be some fundamental secret to Wing Chun’s defense that lets them do this.

Kevin Lee:

Wing Chun doesn’t teach blocking.

Sensei Seth:

Okay?

Kevin Lee:

There’s no blocking.

Sensei Seth:

Really?

Kevin Lee:

There’s zero blocking in Wing Chun because for self-defense purposes or for street fighting purposes anytime I try to block I’m wasting time.

Sensei Seth:

And you’re kind of permitting them to throw more punches.

Kevin Lee:

Exactly! Okay, I’m helping you to get your combination will follow through.

Kevin Lee:

Right, so we like to teach perry first and then intercepting.

Kevin Lee:

So if you’re doing sparring, you have to know how to block.

Kevin Lee:

So I’ll teach you how to punch and to block.

Kevin Lee:

Once you get that, I’ll start using my hand.

Kevin Lee:

Feel this. I just tap.

Kevin Lee:

Now you got four different actions.

Kevin Lee:

Punch. That’s one.

Kevin Lee:

Two.

Kevin Lee:

And three.

Sensei Seth:

Huh. Got it.

Sensei Seth:

This next part that he taught me I was most skeptical about and now is my most favorite thing.

Kevin Lee:

I want to destroy your knuckle.

Kevin Lee:

Depending on my range, we’ll perry and I’ll hit you with my elbow like that.

Sensei Seth:

Oooh!

Kevin Lee:

And of course, this takes a lot of practice.

Kevin Lee:

What I tell people to do is aim like you’re going to punch my chin.

Kevin Lee:

I’ll just move like that. And then I’ll do this.

Sensei Seth:

Wooh, I did feel that.

Kevin Lee:

Really, I want to hit right there.

Kevin Lee:

Which is elbow in.

Kevin Lee:

But I have to make sure you’re punching me like that.

Kevin Lee:

So one thing is that I can use my other hand to support this hand like that.

Kevin Lee:

This is super hard to do.

Kevin Lee:

Don’t start like you’re not sure what to do.

Kevin Lee:

Cause every time I punch, I get hit back.

Kevin Lee:

So now I have to start throwing combinations.

Sensei Seth:

Once I got the hand of the defense, Kevin gave me four things to try and accomplish all offensive moves.

Kevin Lee:

One. Two. Just like that.

Sensei Seth:

One. Two.

Sensei Seth:

The first of which being the basic One, Two but with vertical fists.

Kevin Lee:

Second one. This is tricky because I’m going to punch with this hand towards your head.

Kevin Lee:

So you’re going to step off and punch into the pad.

Kevin Lee:

That’s it.

Sensei Seth:

After emphasizing the importance of getting up the central line, we worked on what is called Lop Sao.

Kevin Lee:

I put your hand down like so, but halfway through I shoot my punch forward, but my hand is still connected to you.

Kevin Lee:

Boom! Boom! Like that!

Sensei Seth:

And lastly, and most famously the Chain Punch.

Kevin Lee:

We’re progressively moving forward, like this. And at the same time, rolling out punches.

Sensei Seth:

I’m replacing one after another?

Kevin Lee:

Shuffle forward. That’s it. Boom, boom, boom!

Kevin Lee:

Just like that. That’s it!

Sensei Seth:

Oh yeah, and other than those four things, there are also all these things.

Sensei Seth:

And with all this information, Kevin was on his way. And I was on my way to get my butt kicked – question mark?

Sensei Seth:

I’m not going to lie, I was pretty impressed.

Sensei Seth:

Let me walk you through what I learned and how I used it.

Sensei Seth:

There’s the One, Two.

Sensei Seth:

There’s that flip hand, back fist.

Sensei Seth:

I try and stick to his arm here, while he’s coming across, which allows me to see and feel everything.

Sensei Seth:

Here, watch my fingers very closely. I flip the fingers down and come out over the top.

Sensei Seth:

Now by having this squared stance, it doesn’t help kicks much. I did feel my side getting stuck and in vulnerable positions quite a bit.

Sensei Seth:

This is a great example. Here I eat a body shot.

Sensei Seth:

And here a leg kick.

Sensei Seth:

Here I whiff on the kick to the hip but then I’m able to stick and frame out.

Sensei Seth:

Now, this part is truly interesting. It has nothing to do with Wing Chun at all.

Sensei Seth:

Okay, back to the Wing Chun.

Sensei Seth:

Now this one, I feel like is a pretty good test of if Wing Chun will work or not because I’m not against somebody who is super well trained.

Sensei Seth:

And I’m not saying that in a disrespectful way. The guy I’m sparring with now is fairly new and isn’t quite adjusted to sparring yet, going a little hard and a little all over the place, which we’re working on.

Sensei Seth:

However, it is a good show of fighting somebody who is not on the gym floor. With a little more power and a little less technique.

Sensei Seth:

With this long, vertical, front hand, I was finding a lot of success; popping stuff out of the way and firing back.

Sensei Seth:

I kinda broke the techniques up into rounds. And for this round, I really wanted to work off the defense and specifically that. The elbow pop.

Sensei Seth:

I made it work once or twice. And it’s not that Kevin said to keep your hands low, it’s not recommended by him but in Wing Chun, they do.

Sensei Seth:

And because of that, sometimes, stuff on the outside get sketchier.

Sensei Seth:

Now to finish it off, I only had two or three real attempts at a chain punch. That was one of them.

Sensei Seth:

You probably couldn’t even tell.

Sensei Seth:

This is kind of a variation that I was looking for, like a perry-perry-go. But both times, it didn’t really work out for me.

Sensei Seth:

Then there was this one. Where it was hard to keep my feet under me.

Sensei Seth:

I need to work on that one, for sure.

Sensei Seth:

All in all, I feel like I had a pretty significant change of heart when it comes to Wing Chun.

Sensei Seth:

One, Kevin is awesome. You guys should subscribe. He’s really cool and he’s like the nicest guy.

Sensei Seth:

Two, I think there are way more useful applications for it than it gets credit for.

Sensei Seth:

But to be fair, the reason it doesn’t get credit for it as much is because of the way people use it.

Kevin Lee:

I think people get trapped in the Wing Chun training a little too much sometimes.

Kevin Lee:

I mean there’s nothing wrong in training the art itself right. But for me, it’s the functionality of the art.

Kevin Lee:

How you take something and combine it with your own skills to implement or improve on your acquired knowledge.

Sensei Seth:

I think that there’s something between.

Sensei Seth:

I think a lot of people focus on simply technique while some people focus on simply fighting.

Sensei Seth:

And I think there’s a middle ground.

Sensei Seth:

Which is probably why it gets such a bad rep. Because you see all these people who kinda look like they don’t know what they’re doing while maybe having good technique.

Sensei Seth:

Which in viewers’ minds leads to “oh, that technique isn’t worth anything.” rather than “oh, they’re not using that technique in a way that works.”

Sensei Seth:

That’s what’s great about guys like Kevin. He’s phenomenal with the ability to fight and with the ability to use the technique flawlessly.

Sensei Seth:

So he’s an integral part of bringing back martial arts that have kind of gotten a bad name. This is just my opinion.

Sensei Seth:

Anyway, subscribe or I’ll kick you. Bam!

Sensei Seth:

I am so glad I punched this watermelon.