By Nic Bartell | November 16, 2017
The Parallels Between Krav Maga and Ving Tsun
What is Krav Maga?
Krav Maga is known for its focus on real-world situations, extreme efficiency, and brutal counter-attacks. The original concept of Krav Maga was to take the most simple and practical techniques of other fighting styles and to make them rapidly teachable to military conscripts.
What is Ving Tsun?
Ving Tsun was developed with the purpose of quickly training battle-field-ready warriors, the fighting and military masters drew from their collective experience to flush out only the best, most effective principles, strategies and techniques to form the Ving Tsun system. Ving Tsun’s specialty is close quarters combat, using powerful punches and kicks with simultaneous defense.
Common Principles
Concepts present in both Ving Tsun and Krav Maga:
- Simultaneous attack and defense.
- Continuing to strike the opponent until they are completely incapacitated.
- Attacking preemptively or counterattacking as soon as possible.
- Using any objects at hand that could be used to hit an opponent.
- Targeting attacks to the body’s most vulnerable points, such as: the eyes, neck or throat, face, solar plexus, groin, ribs, knee, foot, etc.
- Using simple and easily repeatable strikes.
- Maintaining awareness of surroundings while dealing with the threat in order to look for escape routes and further attackers.
- Recognizing the importance of and expanding on instinctive response under stress.
I’m looking for Krav Maga - Why Would I Train Ving Tsun?
While Krav Maga and Ving Tsun share many of the same principles and goals, their training methods vary greatly. Ving Tsun focuses on three main areas: conditioning, technique refinement, and fighting applications. Through repetition the system reprograms our bodies to respond automatically and subconsciously to incoming threats. Ving Tsun training develops proper body structure, posture, and reflexes based on centerline theory rather than relying on physical strength/aggression alone, allowing smaller people to overcome bigger stronger opponents. Ving Tsun focuses on students gaining their own experience of which techniques work for them based upon their own body structure, as opposed to canned sequences or responses. By practicing those techniques in a variety of situations, with different training partners, and high repetition, a student develops confidence in their ability to actually defend themselves when they need it.
What is the Training Like?
Most classes focus on 3 main areas
- Combat Conditioning - Individual training designed to develop power, technique, and proper form.
- Hand to Hand Technique Fundamentals - Partnered training designed to develop reflex, positioning, control, and dominance.
- Fighting Applications - Partnered training designed to develop fighting strategy, technique, timing, and distance awareness.
Get a feel for what we do
The best way to get a feel of what Ving Tsun really is, is to participate in an introductory class. We have an introductory program that includes two classes (one private lesson and one group lesson). Participating in this program will give you a really good idea of what we do and its practicality. You can sign up for that program via the links below.