What exactly does Wing Chun finishing move mean?
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Answer: It’s a term that deals with how you finish a fight. It doesn’t necessarily represent any specific Wing Chun technique or form.
Finishing moves are usually very powerful or effective moves that allow you to finish off your opponent quickly, such as elbows, knees, L-hooks and biu jee pressure point strikes.
Sometimes they can be very fancy and flashy moves like high kicks or spinning elbows, which go against Wing Chun fighting philosophy.
Many times finishing moves, like all the ones above, can put you in a very vulnerable position if it doesn’t work.
Therefore, you only use a finishing move if you have a very high chance of pulling it off with little risk to yourself.
An experienced Wing Chun fighter will “soften” up his opponent with safer punches and kicks and then go for the kill with a finishing move like a well placed elbow or knee, or combination between the two.
A very advanced Wing Chun fighter could use biu jee pressure point strikes straight out of the gate to finish, or quickly end, a fight before it has a chance to escalate.
They’d have to be pretty good, though. To knock someone out with a biu jee pressure point strike you’d have to be super accurate
while hitting a moving target (the opponent).
What would probably happen in a street fight scenario is…
… the Advanced Wing Chun fighter would use a biu jee pressure point strike to immobilize or distract the opponent (jab the eye, groin, throat) and then come in and finish it with more pressure point moves, or heavy power hits like an elbow, or a disabling move like a knee or arm break.
A finishing move could also be, and usually is, a combination of finishing moves.
I’ve been incorporating non-Wing Chun specific “finishing moves” that I find very efficient and effective.
They can easily be combined into Wing Chun since they keep to our principles of efficiency, no wasted movements, and size doesn’t matter.
Another thing I find valuable is that they have a proven system to use lethal moves (if that what it takes for you to survive and come out alive), and they spend a good amount of time helping you get the correct mindset to use truly crippling finishing moves (it’s harder to do than you realize).
I believe combining these methods into Wing Chun could lead to your, and Wing Chun’s, next evolution (like adding the Dragon Pole to Wing Chun, or when Ip Man simplified the system and used modern science to describe its principles). Check them out here.
There are some finishing moves that are overlooked. Breaking someone’s ankle after sweeping them is great. How are they going to come back at you effectively with a broken ankle?
I was taught by my second WC sifu to always go for an instep break on the way in too.
I see the debate about whether WC is about dominating an opponent or not.
As I have been taught it, it is all about doing that but in an intelligent way ie. furious hands, calm mind. I like to put it this way, it’s about pulling a fly apart rather than simply crushing it.
I have noticed on Youtube and elsewhere that some WC groups seem to have a problem maintaining the correct range and go way to close.
Chum Kiu teaches us not only how to get in to trapping range but also how to stop the opponent (or ourselves by neglect) getting too close.
Some seem to chi sau too sloppily and it looks almost like grappling. I also see a lot of people going for one or two shots when they get a line in. I was always taught to keep it coming and keep it sharp.
There is no doubt that a lot of these people are not spending the time and effort working on the yat jic kuen.
I also see some that thrust the fist too far like a karate punch. It is not a powerful enough punch on its own to do serious damage.
Long and precise training is required to get the most from it eg. in the air and on the wall bag. I like to send the force inside and have caused serious damage doing it that way.
Another problem I see with today’s WC people is that so many of them are in to playing games that the system is just not made for.
A real fight is a very quick collision that only lasts a few seconds. That is what WC is structurally designed for.
The guy is coming at you and you STAY and finish the job ASAP not hopping around a massive sports gym or a 16X16 boxing ring.
ATB
Mani