Wing Chun v. Kickboxing

A refreshing change from most "sparring" videos that feature a traditional martial art being eaten alive by a "modern" martial art. There's one big change that makes a difference in this one, though. I'll put it at the end, see how long it takes you to figure out where I'm going with it.

First, they're wearing their own respective gloves. The Wing Chun guy has open-handed gloves on, the kickboxer has traditional boxing gloves on. Also, elbow pads. Elbows matter.

Second, their feet. Wing Chun guy is able to continually advance with drop steps in a straight line. Further, he's able to prevent the kicking game from becoming a factor by launching direct kicks against the stable leg of his opponent, with linear kicks directed below the waist.

Finally, there's the distance and movement. Even though the Wing Chun fighter is expending much less energy and moving much less, his ability to launch a sudden set of linear attacks is keeping the kickboxer from moving into his most effective range and jamming out any circular attacks.

So what makes the difference? It comes down to who's playing whose game. In a kickboxing match, their would be a ring to force more circular footwork, they'd both be wearing full-sized gloves, their would be no elbow threat, and low kicks would be *right* out. But this isn't a kickboxing match.

This is the Wing Chun guy playing his game against a kickboxer. And naturally, he's winning his own game.

So that's where I'm going with this. Your success is almost 100% based on how well you can make the other guy play your game. It's an old axiom that strikers train to stay on their feet and grapplers train to take them off of them, but it even works on striking. But it goes further and farther out than that. Striker v. Striker, Grappler v. Grappler, whatever have you.

You've spent the majority of your time getting good at something in particular. How well can you make it matter?

Homework: What if you've trained to be as balanced as possible? How do you make *that* matter?