Why Our Footwork is Different

Many people ask why our family’s footwork is different than other Wing Chun lineages. The short of it is that we recognize the difference between bridge and non-bridge realities. If you look at boxing, for example, you’ll notice that there’s a significant difference in their structure/stance when they’re in a clinch and when they’re not. Non-bridge range requires more mobility to avoid being a target and to gain access to one. Once in contact with the enemy, however, the bridge-control requires a lowering of one’s weight.

This is simple, right? It’s a verifiable truth that we can see not only in boxing, but also in other combat sports too.

So, why do so many Wing Chun students and teachers ignore it? Why do we see so many obviously illogical “Franken-chun” type Wing Chun schools dragging their feet around rather than use the quick, short steps that are so obviously needed? Well, that’s the long of it. It’s the fallacy of traditionalism rearing its head. This isn’t to be confused with having no respect for the past, which we should. In fact, traditionalism mischaracterizes the past rather than respects it. Do we really think that Ip Man was able to defend himself while moving like his feet were in quicksand?

Traditionalism is the fallacy of myth. It’s the attempt to escape from the pressures of the present (and future) by hiding in a false past. No, Ip Man, nor any human being, could successfully defend themselves consistently while barely moving. That’s a myth. (Sifu Tony Massengill likes to call it the “Donnie Yen” myth…standing there with your arms extended like Donnie did in the Ip Man movies).

A myth is a sort of traditional or legendary type of narrative/story that escapes rational scrutiny. This usually happens because the power of the tradition and/or the allure of the particular legend. In our case, Wing Chun is replete with both and this leads to the most dangerous of myth-keeping. Why dangerous? Because we’re dealing with the category of self-defense - that is, violence. We aren’t talking about someone who’s still listening to music on an iPod or has an 8-track cassette player in the house.

Violence is a nasty thing to be wrong about and history is full of dead, blown up, shot up, dismembered, tortured, beaten, raped, enslaved, and otherwise immensely regretful stubborn souls who challenged reality to a duel. One of the more famous examples was the Boxer Rebellion in China wherein charlatans convinced highly motivated men that they could overcome firearms with inner power. Or something to that effect.

Close-range (bridge) footwork is different than "free movement" (long range). This should be obvious, but many Wing Chun families ignore this simple but critical truth.

Always remember: sincerity and motivation are not, repeat not, tests of truth. Reality doesn’t care about our feelings. It doesn’t give a hoot about our lineage. Here’s a few more rather famous examples of serious miscalculations that ended badly for those who, well, miscalculated:

Custer’s Last Stand was so named because of a severe underestimation as to the tenacity and commitment of the enemy.

The U.S. Army’s retreat from the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War was the result of the American’s “military intelligence” having none. They insisted there were no Chinese in Korea and then got attacked by hundreds of thousands of them.

The Titanic sank because overeducated doofuses (a technical term, that) insisted that racing through the North Atlantic in early April, and in the dark, was safe.

Closer to home, the 2008 financial crisis proved that a lot of very smart people can be very, very wrong when they eschew economic fundamentals. (A true lesson from history that all self-defenders should commit to memory: never trust people who make decisions but don’t have any skin in the game).

In this case, Wing Chun is shot-through full of myths and half-baked ideas that are mistaken as gospel truth. This is primarily due to teachers relying on mistaken tradition and illogical legend as a guide to violence. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the area of footwork. In our family we practice the two types of footwork already mentioned: bridge and non-bridge. Neglecting the latter leads to serious danger. It’s impossible to use our nifty close-range skills if we never get there in the first place because we got a serious shellacking on the way in!