Wing Chun is the best place to start your martial arts journey even if you plan to go into mixed martial arts. Wing Chun is a complete rounded system and a good base to start your journey regardless of where you want to go with it in your career for several reasons.
- Wing Chun is a rounded martial art
I will lay out for you every reason why wing Chun is the best place to start and then we will talk about your other options and why wing Chun is a better option. Wing Chun is a round martial art that contains striking, grappling, locking, street defense and combat applications. Wing Chun also has two weapons including the butterfly knives and Dragon pole.
2. Wing Chun can make you famous
Wing Chun is also embraced by Hollywood movies as well as movies around the world. It is great for social media with amazing forms, weapons and the wooden dummy which will really impress your audience.
3. You can learn Wing Chun relatively quickly.
The system of Wing Chun can be learned in a relatively short amount of time. Wing Chun only has three hand forms, one dummy form, and 2 weapon forms. With a short number of years committed over your lifetime, you can complete the system and have something you can do for life whether you plan to fight with it, do sports combat, or become a teacher.
4. Wing Chun won’t cause CTE brain damage, torn joints or a broken spine.
The benefit of Wing Chun practice is that you will unlikely sustain any head injury, brain damage, broken joints, or a broken spine while practicing and learning this art. The amount of skin-to-skin contact is minimal so the risk of catching an infection from other students is minimal as well.
Let’s look at your alternatives in both traditional martial arts and mixed martial arts.
5. Wing Chun has a complete system you can complete vs Muay Thai, Boxing, or wrestling which is a never ending journey with no end and no belts.
It is easier to start in traditional martial arts because it is a set system with ranks you can complete in a reasonable amount of time. Some of your main choices will be karate, tae kwon do versus other less combat oriented martial arts. The main mixed martial arts that people learn and train in include Muay Thai, Brazilian jujitsu, wrestling, and boxing. The benefit of traditional martial arts is that earlier in your life you can finish it while as Muay Thai, wrestling and boxing are open ended with no end in sight. In those styles you will continually train with no finish the system or ability to prove your experience other than time in the ring and your fight record which will not apply to you if you don’t plan to get in the ring and fight professionally.
There is no black belt in Muay Thai, wrestling or boxing. Even if you tell people how many years you been doing those styles, nobody will know or even believe how good you are without a fight record. As far as Brazilian jujitsu it can take 10 years to get a black belt and a lot of people won’t even get the purple belt. It is insanely difficult to get to the level of black belt especially if you are not athletic or excel at the sport naturally. So, even if your plan is to go into mixed martial arts and you want to learn Brazilian jujitsu, wrestling, boxing, and Muay Thai, it is a good idea to get some rank in traditional martial arts to have for your resume and to be fall back on later in your life especially if you don’t have an amazing professional fight record to show and prove your ability.
6. Wing Chun is a flexible style that works well with other styles
The benefit of Wing Chun over all the traditional martial arts is that it is a flexible style that will keep you loose and complements the punching style of boxing, the joint manipulation of jujitsu and defenses against styles like Muay Thai including stop kicks which are relatively unique to Wing Chun. Wing Chun has proven itself as a base for mixed martial arts through people like Bruce Lee.
7. Wing Chun will teach you useful, practical weapons.
8. You can do Wing Chun well into old age successfully.
Furthermore, tae kwon do does not teach weapons and tae kwon do and karate both have more forms to memorize then Wing Chun before completing the system. There are millions of Wing Chun practitioners around the world to support your growth locally and give you a career well into old age. The older you are and more experienced you are in wing Chun the more respect you will get. Will you be able to do the fancy jump kicks of tae kwon do when you are a senior citizen? Will you have the same bone thickness to withstand the blocking power of karate when you are senior citizen? The grandmasters of wing Chun practiced and taught wing Chun until their death well into their 70s with cancer.
9. Wing Chun will offer you oportunities to grow, teach, learn and fight at all stages of your life.
The flashy clips you see on YouTube and television are great marketing and exciting to watch, but you have to think about the best path for your success in life and what you want to get out of martial arts. The short years of a professional fighter are very limited and very few make a significant amount of money or fame. Even with fame and money, the stars of the past are forgotten for the new champions of the present and even they have to think about what they are going to do next. Will new martial arts athletes want to learn from the seniors of professional fights of the past, or do they want to join the newest gym owned by the biggest promoter of the time that have recent fighters as the coaches? In the game of life we are playing the long game and you need to choose wisely.
