I have a bit of a soft spot for wing chun too, Bruce Lee did more to spread martial arts in the US then anyone. Wing Chun is an empty handed boxing, and it seemed in that sense more versatile then what a boxer could do. I do judge forms on their effeciency in a street fight. My friend Alex who was an exceptional fighter, who I studied Muay Thai under, said that the origin of the art was to cripple your opponent from harming you as quickly as possible, in the event your spear broke in battle, because soon more warriors could come. I keep that in mind all the time, because at their core, martial arts are arts of war, and you have to be very respectful towards that. I don't take Martial Arts lightly at all. I'm not one for street fighting though. But I also agree that there is something to be taken from every art. I started Tae Kwon Do when I was 7, untill about the age of 13, where I went with my friend to do boxing. I liked boxing a lot, and still do, but I knew their was something missing from the art, all hands, and when the opponents got tired, they would just clinch each other. So I got intrested in kickboxing when I was about 16, and found a TKD school which emphasised kickboxing. It was nice because it allowed me to make use of my boxing I had learned and do some kicking, however, there still felt like their could be more to it. Then at 17 I moved to Dallas, and buy sheer luck ran into Alex who was 21 and said he was a thai boxing instructor. I said I was a kickboxer, and thought they were the same thing. He showed me otherwise. We trained for about a year, daily. Muay Boran is the science of 9. There are 9 points of offense, and 9 points of defense, two fists, two elbows, two knees, two feet (in thai the word for shin and foot is the same, and most kicks are thrown from the shin.) and finally the forehead, which we were taught technigues of using, but we never sparred using it, because it's a good way to break a nose fast. I have since become somewhat versed in Gracie jui jitsu, Aikijutsu and Judo. I'm trying to get better at the aiki whose class trains opposite the same building of my karate class. I'm still wanting to perfect my thai boxing, and learn some new teqnique. Other then the aiki, most of the syles of fighting have learned have influenced more on liniearity. In boxing we learned to move circularly, however the only strikes which focused outside a straight line was the hook. So right now I guess I'd like my focusing to be more into aiki and a more circular fighting such as some of wing chun art to round me off as a martial artist. Feel free to ramble, I could talk about martial arts all day. I agree what you get out is what you put into it, both internally and externally.
