Wing Chun vs. The Shoot
Today’s martial environment includes a host of takedowns and ground fighting applications. Due to mixed martial arts, we have all seen an explosion of jiu-jitsu and MMA schools around the world. I am a big fan of MMA because this approach attempts to bring realism back into the world of mainstream martial arts vs. blindingly training something because their teacher says it will work as trained. Like Wing Chun, their thought is that it needs to be trained and tested in today’s environment to really see how it will fare, and I am all for that. While I might not follow their methods of the art they work, I certainly follow their vision of keeping things as real as possible.
One of the more common applications that most will see in this type of fighting is the shoot. Regardless of the tactic that got them there, a shoot is when an attacker drives in low in order to take the opponent down. This can include single leg, double leg, a follow up sweep to collapse the defender’s body around himself, and basically any other combination that puts him on the ground.
The Wing Chun response to a shoot depends on how it is enacted, but one thing most of the defenses share is that we do not counter-grapple with a grappler. I would never box a western boxer because I am not a western boxer. I would never kick with a kicker, and I would never grapple with a grappler. Doing so would mean fighting their fight and adhering to the tactics they are used to vs. fighting my fight and sticking with how I work my own tactics.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that a shooter will telegraph what he is doing. A good shooter will be on you like there is no tomorrow, and the next thing you know you are on your back being choked out.
Also, if a shooter drives in and you successfully defend, do not think he will automatically withdraw in order to try again. In many cases, he will immediately change to another attack and work a new angle, striving to take advantage of every inch of ground they can gain and work whatever limb is presented.
So let’s take a common double-leg shoot and examine a couple of responses to see how a Wing Chun fighter might respond. Note the keyword of might here because there are a number of ways to respond to any given situation. I will simply describe one of the more common methods I have seen from my own experiences.
In this scenario, the attack sees a fake or even multiple punches to the top zone in order to draw your arms forward for the defense. This creates a hole to which the attacker drives low and into your legs. Grasping fully around your legs, a number of takedowns can occur ranging from trips and lifts to throws. This scenario will see one leg wrap around yours to trip you backwards while the attacker maintains a firm grasp to follow you down for a choke or lock.
The first action is the upper zone. Wing Chun’s concept of fighting dictates that when anything comes in, we respond to it. If it suddenly changes direction, Chi-sau has taught us to instantly respond even if we do not get the chance to make contact for feeling where the attack has changed to. Because of this, we need to work our Chi-sau in the gym so that even without feeling, we drive through the open holes.
Where a fake or feint is present, there is no opponent there to hit. Therefore, the direction immediately changes to a low trajectory. Biu-Tze’s third section includes Dim-jarn, or Vertical-elbow, which is quite adept at changing the arm from an out-stretched punch to an immediate elbow attack driving straight down into the back of the opponent’s head or into his neck/spinal column. The force of Dim-jarn is such that your entire body drives down with it vs. merely an arm action itself. Because of this, you can see the permanent injuries that can result to an attacker when they expose the back of their head.
There are two schools of thought as to what the low body should be doing when a shoot comes in. One is to sprawl backwards so that the attacker cannot grab the legs. The second is to take the opposite approach in that rather than backwards, we explode forwards. Moving forward, we drive a knee into the attacker’s face.
Depending on the attack, this may or may not work. It has a better chance of success if the attack is thigh level, but it will almost always fail if the attack is shin level (meaning that the attacker himself is lower and out of the way). You will never know which attack is appropriate until the attack actually happens, so those that train only to drive their knee forward will find themselves in a sticky situation if the shoot is performed by a trained fighter who knows to go very low (which improves his odds of taking you down).
Personally, I feel safer driving into my opponent and working tight, explosive elbows and knees. If the opponent goes extremely low, I will slam my palm down to his head and drive his head into my knee. This has the effect of doubling the power with half the effort.
However, if the attack is really explosive and powerful, chances are that he will drive right over you like a bulldozer. In this case, you need to work explosive Hau-bo or Wang-bo actions so that you are either further away or stepping to the side. This is not as easy as it sounds, though, because both of these actions will still leave a leg exposed to which the attacker can grab. While I feel more comfortable at driving into an attacker and working knees and elbows, the sheer physics of someone blasting into your legs will immediately put the odds in their favor; therefore, you need to work both of these drills with a trained shooter in order to learn the mechanics of how your body will respond.
