Wing Chun

Internal elements of Wing Chun

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Had another great Wing Chun lesson from Bear this week. This time we seemed to look at more and more principles that I would call “internal”, which again calls into question if these terms are really useful for describing martial arts…

I mentioned last time that he calls the Wing Chun straight punch a “sun punch” because the fist looks like the character Ri for Sun. Today we looked at two exercises for helping with chaining punches together. For the first one you use a towel. Hold both ends, and punch so it makes a kind of cracking sound. I’ve seen videos of “belt cracking” before, usually associated with Chinese Wrestling, but I have also seen videos of it used in Wing Chun before as well. The emphasis is on being relaxed and getting a nice sharp, crisp movement. And here’s the key – the pull back of the other hand is the important bit, not the punching hand.

In the second exercise you hold a rope around something vertical and solid, (we used a wooden drumstick from the drum kit in the lockup) and you punch holding the ends of the rope. The key to this one is that your rope should not pull on the object it is around, so you’re keeping everything inside a very fixed space. Again, the pull back hand is the initiator of the action, and if you focus on that you get a more relaxed, faster, punch.

While the first exercise was all in front of you, this one involves a muscle/tendon chain going up your arm and around your back and into the other arm. I’ve seen this described before as “tongbei” or “though the back” power. I’m sure I heard Bear say “Bu Bei” which means back or rear, so I’m going to assume we’re talking about the same thing.

He does these punches very, very fast and explosively. Faster than the eye can see. He points out that it’s all about being relaxed, so the power can be “all though the arm” not just in the fist, which it is if you are tense. And the initiator of the punch is the non-punching hand moving backwards.

At one point he says “arrow punch”, and looks at me. I say “Beng Chuan?” And he says “yes!”. He seems to be saying that this is the same as Xing Yi’s Beng Chuan, just without the footwork. That’s something to think about.

When he punches he seems to also emphasise the root in the foot, so the power is coming up from the ground (sound familiar?) and he uses all the joints of the body, in a chain, ending in the fist.

I asked him why, when he punches, he uses his whole body in a very expressive way, with this ‘through the back’ kind of power and dynamic footwork, the “Little idea” form is different? When we train “Little idea” the requirements are very strict – the body stays still and the arm just punches on its own. I think (through translation) the answer was that you are learning to release tension in “Little idea” and not expressing power, so think of it as a conditioning exercise to give you the sort of body that can be used later for more expressive Wing Chun punches and kicks.

So, it appears that once you look beyond the surface-level things about Wing Chun, I’m finding principles that fit right in with Tai Chi and Xing Yi. I look forward to whatever we learn next.

Starting Wing Chun

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Due to a series of fortuitous events, this week I ended up learning Wing Chun for a couple of hours from a teacher from Hong Kong in a cold, damp, lockup somewhere off the beaten track in an industrial estate. As we ran through the opening sequence of the “little idea” form, (Siu Lim Tao), the glare of the electric light bulb cast our stationary shadows out through the open door into the dark, rainy yard outside and I remember thinking that this really felt like the real thing. I could feel the magic of Kung Fu here.

We are learning from “Bear”, a nickname we have created from his family name (Xiong). Bear has long hair and glasses and has a kind of laid back vibe. He seems more interested in being friendly and making friends than fighting. He speaks very little English, but YaYa his girlfriend does and acts as his translator. I’d say about 60% of it gets through, the rest I can hopefully work out thanks to my previous martial training.

He’s built a bit like a bear too – he takes his top off so we can see his arms – his tendons and muscles are clearly very conditioned and big, yet his arms feel soft to the touch. He used to train “5 hours a day when I was reading”, which I think means when he was a student.

He doesn’t have an ego at all. He demonstrates his speed all the time, but without hitting us, just stopping short – but at the same time his instruction is incredibly precise and demanding. Parts of the body have to move and other parts must stay still. He touches my arm and says “Ooooh! Very sung”, which I’ll take as a compliment 🙂

The concrete floor is damp and slippy, but luckily we are not doing footwork yet. We have to bend our legs all the time, as if sitting on a stool and grip with our inner thighs as if riding a horse. The night air is cool and the breeze blows in through the open door as we go through the opening movements of Siu Lim Tao, over and over.

I’m used to bending my wrist back so the fingers are vertical to form “praying hand”, and sitting down into my stance as if riding a horse, thanks to years of training other styles, but my companions are not, so there is a lot of stretching out aching legs and talk about how to condition tendons so wrists can be bent back further.

The three of us have ended up here after a chance meeting, and a lot of mistranslation. I was initially told that my friend had met Bruce Lee’s nephew who was going to teach us Wing Chun. OK, I thought, it was unlikely but theoretically possible that he could be Bruce Lee’s nephew, but the “nephew” bit turned out to be a mistranslation based on the word “Sifu” meaning both father and teacher. So, he’s a “marital nephew”, but not a family nephew. But who cares, we are all here now learning together and we’re having a great time, so I’m going with it. You can learn from any good teacher, and the chance to learn a new martial art is always a great opportunity.

Bear pulls out a book, which looks like a hand-written training notes, and starts to tell us the story of the creation of Wing Chun, which YaYa translates. It was, we are told, created from “the observation of a snake and a goose fighting”. (I suspect he really means crane). The goose(!) uses its wings in a kind of sideways swiping action, like Wing Chun’s Bong Sau. The key feature of the snake, Bear emphasises, is that it doesn’t retreat to strike, it just strikes from where it’s at. Bear pulls out his phone and shows us this clip from ‘Enter the Dragon’ where Bruce fights O’Hara to demonstrate:

I’d thought of Wing Chun as being more based on lots of relaxed arm trapping, but Bear seems much more interested in striking as quickly and explosively as he can, with minimal movement, which I think he was trying to tell us was the point of training the “little idea” form, very much like Bruce in this clip. Not big movement – minimal movement. There seems to be a snap on the end of everything, too, and he says the words “fa jin”, which Tai Chi people should be familiar with, quite often.

Having read all these snake and crane origin stories for years, not to mention hearing stories of many of my own British teachers having to work out what their Chinese teacher was actually saying through the limitations of translation, I’m finding this experience of living the tradition quite magical.

Towards the end he starts showing us some kicks and these are fast, low and look very cool. He wants us to fix some tires on the wall to practice kicks on. He seems to pendulum his upper body backwards as his legs flash forward, as if avoiding a head strike and countering low. The impression I get is that whatever we are learning it’s not designed for a long protracted engagement. It’s quick, to the point and you get it over with then move on. I’m looking forward to learning more next week.

To be continued.

What is the point of Tai Chi applications?

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Yang Cheng-Fu showing Tai Chi applications from his book.

In the comments section Richard asked a good question in response to my last post. I wrote a brief reply in the comments, but I thought I’d flesh it out a bit as a blog post, because it’s an interesting topic.

The question is, ‘what’s the point of Tai Chi applications?’ Actually, to be fair, he was talking specifically about the one application video in my last post, not about Tai Chi in general. But personally I think you can extrapolate the question to include the wider Tai Chi universe, and that would be where I’d look for my answer.

There are plenty of videos of respected masters of various styles of Tai Chi running though the applications of their form movements and producing a series of very questionable applications that would require a perfect storm of events to happen for them to work. I don’t want to post them here because I think it would distract from the point I’m making, but look up ‘Name of famous master’ and ‘applications’ on YouTube and you’ll find them.

I really like the phrase “a perfect storm” to describe Tai Chi applications because as far as I can see, most (if not all) Tai Chi applications one would require a ‘perfect storm’ of attacker, positioning and timing for the application work. Therefore the one application video I posted previously is not particularly different to any other Tai Chi application video, at least to me.

That might not be a popular opinion, but I think it’s true.

Contrast this with a martial art like Choy Li Fut. I’ll choose CLF because it’s a kind of a typical Chinese Kung Fu style. It’s has some key techniques like Sao Choy – sweeping fist and Charp Choy – leopard fist and Pao Choy, a kind of big uppercut, Gwa Choy, a backlist, for example.

Here’s 10 of the ‘basic’ techniques that you find in CLF:

I wonder – does the man in the mirror ever punch him back?

If you watch a Choy Li Fut form then you’ll see these 10 techniques crop up again and again, but each form enables you to practice them in different combinations:

A great title for a video “Killer Choy Li Fut form!” It’s actually a great performance, especially with the drumming in the background.

Or check out the famous first form of Wing Chun – Siu Lim Tao, it’s a series of techniques performed very, very accurately so you can refine and practice them:

Now when you do those techniques in a form, you are performing a technique that would work exactly as shown. The only thing you need for success is to actually contact with an opponent and do the move correctly at the right time. 

Tai Chi as a marital art just doesn’t work in the same way. We don’t have a toolbag of techniques designed to be pull out and used ‘as is’. Ward off is not a fundamental technique of Tai Chi – instead Peng, the ‘energy’ you use in performing ward-off, is the important thing. And I think this leads to a lot of confusion about what Tai Chi forms are.

So, if we don’t have techniques that exist in the same way as other marital arts, how are you supposed to fight with Tai Chi?

Tai Chi is a set of principles and a strategy that together make it a martial art. In a nutshell the strategy part can be summed up with the 5 keywords of push hands – listen, stick, yield, neutralise and attack. The principles cover how the body is used, resulting natural power derived from relaxation, ground force and a series of openings and closings expressed in the 8 energies. When the principles of Tai Chi are properly internalised you become something like a sphere, which can redirect force applied to you with ease and respond as appropriate. All these things are elucidated in the Tai Chi Classics.

Now that short description probably leaves a lot out, of what Tai Chi is, but at least it’s a starting point.

If that’s your goal, then putting emphasis on individual techniques doesn’t make much sense. Everything you do now exists in relation to an opponent, rather than existing on its own terms. The Tai Chi form then becomes a series of examples of how you might respond to specific attacks. In essence, it is a series of perfect storms, one after the other, put in a sequence that is long enough that you start to internalise the principles of movement and energy use. And obviously the strategy part requires a partner, hence why push hands exists.

I think that’s also the reason why Tai Chi forms are so long and slow, btw, so you internalise things.

As a final note, I’d say the jury is still out as to whether the Tai Chi way is the best approach to teaching people to fight. It’s interesting to note that a lot of martial arts innovators tend towards this same nebulous ‘technique-free’ style of training the further they get into their research into martial arts. Bruce Lee for example, was moving towards freedom and the technique of no technique in his later years – see his 1971 manifesto ‘Liberate yourself from Classical Karate’ for example. Then there’s Wang Xiang Zhai who created Yi Quan by removing fixed forms and routines from Xing Yi Quan and mixing it with whatever else he had studied. See his criticisms of other Kung Fu styles in his 1940 interview, for example.

Photo by Thao LEE on Unsplash

In contrast a lot of the martial arts that have actually proven effective in modern combat events have turned out to be very, very technique based. Brazilian Jiujitsu, for example, is taught through very specific techniques. So is MMA. Karate, for all of Bruce Lee’s criticisms often does very well in competition against other more esoteric styles because it contains some no nonsense techniques.

Another factor to think of is that while Tai Chi may have those lofty goals of producing a formless fighter in its classical writing, it often isn’t taught like that in reality. One of the martial arts that Wang Xiang Zhai is criticising as having lost its way and become a parody of itself in that 1940 essay linked to above, is, in fact, Tai Chi Chuan!

So, as ever with marital arts, I think the answer is: it’s complicated.

Myth busting in Chinese martial arts

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Look at those lovely brain boxes.

I’ve been re-watching the excellent conversation between Dr Paul Bowman and Dr Sixt Wetzler on Martial Arts, Religion and Spirituality and it’s sparked a few thoughts in my mind. At 34.39 in the podcast they get on to the subject of myth busting.

Bowman notes that instead of helping people, the myth busting of martial arts which is going on all the time in academic circles is probably destroying the careers of some martial arts teachers. So it’s “doing a service to the world which is actually also a kind of violence”. It’s an interesting point. He notes that people often fall in love with the martial arts for silly orientalist reasons – they fall for the myth of studying an ancient and mystical martial art, then read a well-researched book about it, by somebody like Ben Judkins or Peter Lorge, which shatters their beliefs and makes then doubt the validity of the art they are doing. 

My own Heretics podcast does its fair share of myth busting too – our Aikido episode, Kempo & Jiujitsu history series and Tai Chi history series spring to mind as good examples. I’ve had first had experience of those episodes visibly upsetting teachers I know. Whether they know it or not, these teachers are heavily emotionally invested in the myths of their own arts superiority – they believe all the stories of old practitioners and the amazing feats they can do, and know exactly why their martial art is superior to others. If you start to chip away at those beliefs then the whole facade is at risk of crumbling, and they don’t like it! Unfortunately reality is usually disappointing when compared to the myths. 

When the Chinese martial arts first started making an impact on the West in the 1970s they were full of obvious untruths. Tall tales of Buddhist and Taoist origins abounded. For example, that Tai Chi was apparently created by a Taoist immortal who had a dream about a crane fighting a snake, and Wing Chun was named after the girl who was taught it by a female Buddhist monk, when it turns out that there’s no evidence that she even existed. Over time these myths then get added to by other myths – like the one that Yang LuChan was “invincible”, for example. Even in the modern age the myth of Ip Man has been enhanced to bursting point by a series of pseudo-historical films in which he combats the Japanese, western wrestlers, boxers and even Mike Tyson at one point! 

Ip Man 4

These more marketing-orientated myths about the prowess of practitioners – how deadly they were, how unbeatable their martial arts was, how the power of Qi was greater than physical strength all fed directly into all that nonsense about no touch knockouts and “empty force” that has marred the image of Chinese martial arts in the modern age.

And politics also gets involved. When obvious myths about the origins of martial arts are dispelled they often get replaced by more politically motivated stories about the arts origins that are equally as unprovable and unreliable yet fit a natioanlist agenda. It seems like the Chinese martial arts are forever being used to support some sort of Chinese government propaganda.

In short, the Chinese martial arts world was in need of, and remains in need of, a lot of myth busting, because much of what we are being told and sold is basically not true. But Bowman’s fears, that we are in danger of spoiling the fun for everybody with this relentless search for the truth, holds true, I think. I was certainly attracted to Chinese martial arts by a steady diet of orientalist propaganda from the likes of David Carradine’s Kung Fu TV series and Marvel comics with heroes like Iron Fist. This is often what draws us to the martial arts in the first place and there has to be some way of searching for truth in the martial arts, but keeping the magic that drew us there in the first place. 

The multitude of meanings in Chinese Martial Arts

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“You can’t tell a martial artists he’s a dancer without getting a bloody nose.” – G.Barlow, 2020

Bruce Lee, Cha Cha dancer.

I haven’t posted much recently, but the recent deep dive my podcast has taken into the history of a particular Chinese martial art (Taijiquan) seems to have coincided with a number of contentious discussion I’ve had elsewhere on the history of Chinese martial arts that have been taking up my time. Let me redress that imbalance now.

Experience has taught me that if you tell a group of Chinese martial artists that Chinese martial arts used to be so intertwined with Chinese theatre and religion that the two were indistinguishable you invariably annoy them. You will be laughed at and shunned. There are howls of outrage.

No! Chinese martial arts are based purely on effectiveness for fighting! Are you crazy?!?!

But at the same time the very same people will put on demonstration of martial arts (sometimes in the street, but sometimes in an actual theatre!) and perform things like Dragon Dance, without giving it a second thought, or thinking it in any way detracts from their pursuit of serious martial skills, or their wish to be see as serious pugilists.

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why this is. I think it’s hard for people living in the modern age to get their heads around what it would have been like to have lived at the time these arts they practice were created. Yet, it’s important to note that the people who created the Chinese martial arts we’re all familiar with now – things like Choy Li Fut, Wing Chun, Bak Mei, etc, lived in a time when ghosts, demons and ancestors walked amongst us. A time when rituals were used to appease their spirits and gain spiritual merit for the community, and martial arts played a huge part in that.

The performance of a martial arts form was itself the enactment of a ritual for self consecration. The Chinese Government always used ritual to organise the state. The Chinese state was a religious state (See China: A Religious State, Hong Kong University Press).

As the 20th century began in China, the shame felt over the Boxer Rebellion and defeat by European powers, gave way to the realisation that modern ways would need to be adopted to avoid the humiliating defeats that had gone before. This lead to an almost endless series of wars, revolts, reforms and tragedies that resulted in societal change right down to the core, and the martial arts being stripped of much of their social, spiritual and religious function to become simply pugilistic calisthenics. Considering the horrors China endured, we should be glad they survived at all. 

Two great Chinese martial artists I have a lot of time for are Tim Cartmell and Byron Jacobs. Here they have a robust and fantastic discussion about what they’ve trained in and their thoughts on making Chinese martial arts practical again by using modern sparring methods (amongst other things). 

The conversation is really down to earth and useful. It’s clear that they consider the Chinese martial arts to be about fighting first and foremost. Can you imagine throwing in concepts of theatre and spiritual rituals into this conversation? You’d be laughed straight out the door! (If Youtube has doors, that is). 

I think that’s why it’s very hard to talk to martial artists about things like ritual, theatre and how these were entwined with Chinese martial arts almost 200 years ago. They are clearly not today, to the same extent, and yet the connection still persists in China (somehow!).

As Jo Riley relates:

‘In 1991 I filmed a wǔshù club training in the village temple in Zhong Suo village in Guizhou under their master Lu Huamei, who was also the head of the village theatre company. Lu teaches tang quan style, which is in the middle level range of skills, and over three hundred villagers train regularly with him (nowadays girls included). Six small boys also take part in the training, the youngest of whom is ten years old, and the skills they learn from Lu are also observed from standing on the stage with the village theatre company when they perform. As in many villages, the village temple, martial arts training and performance indivisibly form the cradle of acting in and spectating theatre’ (1997:17).

Riley, J. Chinese Theatre and the Actor in Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge, 1997.

Some people are engaging in this conversation though, and I wanted to bring them to your attention. Daniel Mroz has just given a lecture at the most recent Martial Arts Studies Conference, (which was a virtual event, due to the Covid 19 Pandemic).

His lecture “The Meaning of Taolu in Chinese Martial Arts” is now online:

Or you can read it here:

Guest Post: The Meaning and Origin of Taolu in Chinese Martial Arts

Here’s a great quote regarding Choy Li Fut:

Historically, the Choy Li Fut exponents playing tàolù enacted a magical, religious role for their community. The play of tàolù in a seasonal calendar of popular rituals demonstrated the adepts’ martial prowess while earning spiritual merit for the entire community. By practicing and demonstrating the arduous and humbling physical training Choy Li Fut requires, these performers consecrated and re-consecrated themselves over and over to what Daniel Amos refers to as a religion of the body (1997: 31-61). This self-consecration made them spiritually inviolable and venerable in the eyes of their community. Their demonstration of skill acquired through perseverance, or gōngfū (功夫), was a meritorious act performed on behalf of the collective.
This self-consecration was also tacitly expressed in theatre. Theatre permeated public and private life in 19thcentury China. While professional actors belonged to a marginalized underclass, people loved the entertainment they provided and hired them not just to perform but also to teach and coach. For professional, amateur and private groups, the learning, rehearsing and presentation of theatre was beloved, constant and intense. While non-actors would never play professionally, virtually everyone was involved in performing at some level. Chinese theatre, or xìqǔ (戲曲) and Chinese martial arts employ many virtually identical training methods.

Here’s a great presentation by David Palmer and Martin Tse on the connection between social practices, ritual, and martial arts:

Personally I would like to embrace both these world views – the practical and the spiritual (for want of a better word).  I don’t think they need to be mutually exclusive at all. I am interested fully in the practical application of Chinese martial arts, but I’m also happy for its long and complicated history to enhance what I do. I don’t see it as a distraction or an irrelevance. I am so grateful these arts have survived during some of the worst atrocities in human history and made it through to the modern age, and I think viewing them in their original context empowers today’s modern practitioner. 

Human beings are capable of entertaining many different perspectives on something simultaneously, even if they are sometimes contradictory. In the words of Bob Dylan on the opening track of his excellent new album, 

“I’m a man of contradictions, 

I’m a man of many moods, 

I contain multitudes”.

Just a reminder, I do actually like Tai Chi

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Photo by Hassan OUAJBIR on Pexels.com

Looking back over the last few blog posts I’ve written it occurs to me that a reader might think that I don’t actually like Tai Chi Chuan. I do. I practice it pretty much every day. There’s something in it that is just very good for you. Before practice I feel a bit unfocussed, and uncoordinated. After practice I feel like I’m back “in the zone”, and that’s a rare thing for any practice to deliver as consistently as Tai Chi does. And it always does.

If I contrast that with Jiujitsu (something I also love, or at least used to before this lockdown started), after that I’m an exhausted, sweaty mess in need of water and recovery. Jiujitsu is a lot of fun, but it breaks you down. In contrast, Tai Chi builds you up. You need both together. I’ve always practiced my Tai Chi with other more physical arts anyway. More dynamic things, like Choy Lee Fut or Xing Yi are great compliments to the relaxed, slow Tai Chi movements.

One of the reasons I criticise Tai Chi a lot is that it does have the most abysmally low standards amongst its practitioners of any martial art you’ll ever see. In fact, it’s a martial art that most people don’t actually practice as a martial art!

Regular readers to the blog, or regular listeners to the Heretics Podcast, will know that we recently started a series on “The Myth of Tai Chi“. Again, it sounds like it’s a bit of a negative attack on Tai Chi, but anybody with even a cursory understanding of Tai Chi history will realise that a lot of it is vague, unknown and contradictory, especially for a period of time (1850s onwards) in which other martial arts (like Xing Yi) have no confusion over their history and lineage.

Episode 1 of the podcast takes into account all the other things that were happening in China in 1850, and there was a lot! It was a period of turmoil that was about to become even worse with the most bloody civil war in world history – the Taiping Rebellion – which left an estimate 20 million dead. (If you’d like to know more about this and the various martial arts that were created around the same time period, like Wing Chun and Choy Li Fut, then I’d recommend Benjamin Judkin’s excellent book Creation of Wing Chun, The: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts – it’s by far the best Chinese martial arts history book I’ve read).

The best Chinese martial arts history book you’ll ever read!

Now the scene is set, episode 2 (coming soon) will offer more definite conclusions on the origins of Tai Chi Chuan, but there’s still so much left to talk about that this will soon become a mult-part story. You might want to empty your cup before you listen though: Damon’s conclusions on what Tai Chi really is are not particularly favourable for any group trying to claim ownership of the Tai Chi brand – the Chens, the Yangs, the Wus the Taoists or anybody else. You’ll have to wait until episode 2 is released in the next few days to find out what the big reveal is!

But until then, just a little reminder that I do actually like Tai Chi Chuan (honest!), despite appearances. And regardless of its origins what matters is its actual practice. Learning about history won’t make you any more or less skilful, only practice will do that.

Tony Ferguson’s Wing Chun

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I keep hearing talk of current/or current interim/or previous UFC Lightweight champion (it’s such a mess in that division of the UFC at the moment that I lose track) Tony Ferguson and his use of Wing Chun in the UFC.

The following video puts all the different clips of him training on a Wing Chun wooden dummy and fighting in the UFC together, with a bit of Joe Rogan commentary over the top – it’s actually a good watch:

The exercise he’s doing with the metal ball looks a lot like the Baguazhang tea cups drill, as well.

To me his Wing Chun looks kind of self-taught. I get the impression he’s more into innovative training using the wooden dummy equipment, rather than in making a serious attempt to learn and apply actual Wing Chun in MMA.

A lot of the proof that he’s using Wing Chun in the UFC relies on that one elbow he did over the top in the clip above. But the thing is, Jon Jones has been using that for years, and nobody says he’s doing Wing Chun. Watch him doing it against Gustaffson here:

 

Still, it’s worth noting that Fergason is doing well with whatever unconventional training methods he’s using. If he can find some inspiration in traditional Chinese Martial Arts, then so much the better for everyone.

Wing Chun (Ding Hao) vs MMA (Xu Xiao Dong), in China

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After his fight with the “Tai Chi master” Wei Lei, which rocked the contemporary martial arts scene in China, Xu Xiao Dong, the MMA fighter on a mission to expose “fake masters” is back on the scene this time showing his skills against a Wing Chun fighter.

China doesn’t have the sort of government regime which tolerates people who rock the boat, so I’m pleased to see that Xu is no longer under detention, as I feared we may never have seen him again after what happened last time.

Here’s the fight:

 

It’s a pretty ugly fight. Here are my takeaways:

  • Ding Hao clearly lacks realistic sparring experience, as he falls apart pretty quickly. His grappling was non-existent.
  • Xu Xiao Dong is pretty much a ‘stand and bang’ type fighter. Or maybe he felt so unthreatened by Ding that he didn’t feel the need to do much of anything else.
  • The ref makes some daring saves!
  • Why are they wearing such different clothing? Ding has shoes on! Only Xu is wearing gloves. Xu is grabbing Ding’s clothing to throw and control him. It’s a mess.
  • Why are they fighting on what looks like a red carpet used for movie premieres or award shows?
  • If you watch Ding throughout the fight you can see him try to adapt as he realises what he is doing isn’t working. He starts off looking very much like classical Wing Chun and ends up looking more like Jeet Kune Do. It’s like watching the evolution of Bruce Lee in microcosm!

Here’s some background about Xu Xiao Dong and his fights and detention by police in China:

 

Fight against Wei Lei: