Vibram Five Fingers

Some of you may have noticed my unusual shoes in many of the pictures on my site. I’ve been meaning to post about them for a year or so now but keep forgetting. For the past 2+ years I’ve been wearing Vibram Five Fingers.  I’ve got 3 pairs at the moment, and these are the only shoes I wear 99% of the time, for everything from martial arts training and casual wear to mountain trekking and kayaking.  They’re the best shoes I’ve ever had in my life, and I can say with certainty that I’ll never wear a pair of tennis/running/hiking shoes again.  You can find many more enthusiastic reviews of Five Fingers here at BirthdayShoes.com.

Vibram Five Finger KSO

My preferred model is the KSO (Keep Stuff Out).  These are minimalist shoes with VERY thin bottoms.  They allow you to grip the ground like no other shoe.  Wearing them is like being barefoot, but with protection for the soles of your feet. You need to take some time to adjust to wearing them, as the muscles in your feet are likely to be unnaturally weak due to common shoe designs (a real disaster for your body).  The other thing about Five Finger shoes is that they tend to bring you back to walking and moving as your body was meant to.  Because there is no padding in the heal, you’ll quit doing a “heal strike” when walking or running, which will dramatically decrease stress on your knees, hips, and back.  Most people who wear these shoes not only report stronger feet, better balance, etc., but also knee, hip, and back injuries that disappear.  Here’s a great video on the science:

The only time I don’t wear KSO’s is when I’m hiking on steep and rocky mountains.  In those cases I wear Treks, as they have better grip for such situations, and a slightly thicker bottom to protect against bruising from sharp edges.  The black leather is also a bit better for nicer clothes. 

Ditch whatever shoes you’re currently wearing for martial arts/self defense training, and get yourself a pair of Vibram Five Fingers.  You’ll probably end up wearing them all the time, but they’re the best shoes for martial arts training you’ll ever wear.

Wing Chun is a controversial style, and for good reason.  Many of the training methods are ineffective at best.  The prearranged solo forms, which are questionable as training methods in the first place, have illogical orders and stick to the superstition that having 108 moves each is somehow better than 50, 63, or 107.  Routinely, MMA practitioners deride Wing Chun as being a BS system.  This sentiment is understandable, but incorrect.

The concept of simultaneous attack and defense in Wing Chun is excellent, as is controlling the center, the solid structure of the techniques, and basic trapping.  The emphasis on attacking the eyes, throat, and groin is also great for self defense.  But in order to pull any of it off in reality, the training needs to be realistic.  And, some modifications will make Wing Chun safer to apply.  Even still, Wing Chun was not made for the ring.

The lop sao or pull is a great trap to use before kicking your opponent in the groin (following up further if necessary of course).  And the groin kick is very effective.  But you can’t use groin kicks in the ring.  The pak sao or smack is another great trap for self defense, especially when followed by a hack in the neck or finger in the eye, neither of which are allowed in MMA.  You can follow the lop sao or pak sao with punches or palms, but against boxing style structures the “pak sao, punch” or “lop sao, punch” combinations are far less effective.

There are exceptions.  Using a pak sao to create an opening for a punch or two, possibly causing your opponent to cover or retreat, will provide the opportunity for a double lop sao (two handed pull) into knees and elbows against a cover, or a kicking follow up against a retreat.  But due to the unrealistic training in most Wing Chun schools, practitioners are only used to dealing with other Wing Chun stylists…who very often ineffectively stand in one place attempting to block, block, block as a cooperative defense.

In MMA you might see someone opening with a jab-cross combo from boxing, followed by a kick from Thai boxing, followed by a clinch entry and takedown from wrestling, followed by ground techniques from Brazilian jiu jitsu.  They take what’s useful from each style and use various parts where they’re appropriate.  Wing Chun can be used similarly.  An MMA practitioner could use a pak sao trap to increase the likelihood of landing a jab, followed by a cross, then a double lop sao into a knee, etc.  The structure of the “tan sao” can be used to stop a takedown attempt.  The “huen sao” techniques is identical to the initial motion of pummeling or swimming in the clinch.  In self defense, the simultaneous biu sao and punch works very well against most hooks, as does trapping to eye jabs, groin kicks, and throat strikes.

Wing Chun isn’t just BS, and it does have a great deal to offer.  But in order for the strengths to come out, both WC and MMA practitioners need to open their minds and forget about previous prejudices!